Gratis and Libre

Reflections on a Mirror -- 07.09.2010

2010-09-07T15:30:00.001-04:00

Do you ever see your own reflected image in a mirror and wonder what made the person you see before you? One morning, in early September, such a thought occurred to me. In a new apartment, looking in a new mirror, I came to wonder at the young man in front of me. Dressed in plain clothes very much after the manner of many young men my age: a slightly-too-small v-neck undershirt, distressed jeans, an old sun-faded baseball hat and glasses with thick, black frames. Just yesterday, and yet across a vast gulf of time, it seemed I was wishing for spiky hair in elementary school, or shunning jeans in favor of khaki slacks to set myself apart in high school, or wearing Converse All-Stars day-in and day-out as a reserved freshman in college.

Only 23 years, 9 months and 18 days have I counted and, yet, the history of my life already seems vast and beginning to lose its clarity in the hazy reflection of memory. So many choices, both willful and unintentional, brought me thus along this path. Some decisions which, at their time, seemed unbearably important and over which I spent untold hours weighing, contemplating, and worrying, have now faded into obscurity, near to irrelevance. I would say 'irrelevance' without qualification, if it weren't for the eerily-subtle complexity with which choices affect our lives. Conversely, some judgments and decisions which, at the time, I paid no more heed than the choice of "soup or salad?" have altogether ruled my intervening years and continue to dominate my actions.

In my current, reflective state-of-mind, I feel overwhelmed by a dual feeling of helplessness and terrifying freedom. The feeling of helplessness, to my mind, comes from the seemingly-impossible task of discerning what choices will lead me to the life I desire to live and which choices will never again trouble my mind, either in reflection or in memory. Freedom, it seems, comes from the vast possibilities that lay before me, even if I cannot know for certain that my decisions will lead me to those that I prefer.

Truly, my first 23 years, 9 months and 18 days have been very formative but, with any luck, my life is less than one-third over. I am at but the mid-morning of my years; sometimes feeling as though I am just arriving to have brunch with this person I've become after a lazy morning of sleeping-in and, at other times, feeling very hungry and ready for lunch after rising to an early breakfast and a morning full of toil.

Almost, I am paralyzed with despair at the seeming-futility of decision and indecision. What strange mysteries and surprises, joys and sorrows, await me in the early afternoon? The evening? At dusk? Or in the nighttime? Words written by Tolkien come to mind: "'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'" So said Éomer to Aragorn in Book Three of The Lord of the Rings. The answer: "'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'"

To this, a small part of myself responds; perhaps, that part of every person that drives them forth. That small part seems nourished and renewed by the endless possibilities, and even by the blindness with which I make every decision. Although an illusion Free Will may be, I still desire and struggle to be the master of my own destiny. I think everyone does, in his or her own ways.

Finally, I'll end with words from Richard Linklater's film entitled Waking Life. Words which I seem to carry with me wherever I go.

"The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence."

Album Review: Man on the Moon: The End of Day

2009-12-08T17:00:00.004-05:00

As I said way back when I "reviewed" the Mos Def concert I attended, I'm not sure if this will be a permanent fixture of Gratis & Libre. The major problem is that I have very little motivation to review things I don't like. Anyway...

After acquiring my third song from Kid Cudi's debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, I finally broke down and got the whole thing this morning. Having listened to all of it, I gave my recommendation to my roommate with the description that Kid Cudi comes across as being somewhere between Mos Def and Kanye West. He has the same talent that Mos Def displays to briefly describe feelings and situations in a way which makes you say "I know exactly what he means/feels" as well as a tendency to reference hip hop and it's roots in R&B. His beats and musical quality are similar to Kanye West's, but toned down considerably to match his very introspective lyrics. Speaking personally, as one who is (I think) one of many people who like Kanye but wish he would tone it down or show some more range, I found this to be very pleasing. Add a dash of Daft Punk's spacey quality into the backing tracks and you have Kid Cudi's sound.

The album, which presents itself as sort of opera or Dark Side of the Moon-esque concept album, is "about" Cudi's struggle to find, maintain, and channel his creativity. As a man who admits to enjoy spending time alone (often referring to himself as Mr. Solo Dolo, a term which carries a special connotation to him), he finds his creativity in these moments and struggles to find them amidst his busy life. The story arch of the album, if it really has one, follows his realization of this fact and his eventual acceptance, with rapper Common providing spoken-word style narrative following some of the tracks.

As an interesting side note, I think it's pretty unique for an artist (especially in hip hop) to release an album which, essentially, celebrates being an introvert. It's almost in direct opposition to the mainstream hip hop culture and definitely challenges some cultural ideas about introversion. In our culture, behavior like spending a Friday night inside reading is met with considerable incredulity (e.g., make sure to read the mouse-over text)

Finally, this album shows considerable range as well as interest in different musical forms and beats. From the deep and introspective (Soundtrack 2 My Life, Solo Dolo, Sky Might Fall) to the bouncy and fun (Make Her Say) to the sweet and sensual (Enter Galactic) to the joyous and inspiring (Heart of a Lion, Alive, Pursuit of Happiness) and everything in between. The ups and downs of this album all fit into the same theme.

Needless to say, I really like this album, but is it for you? I'm not sure, but if you like Mos Def but would be into something that speaks more to internal struggle than interpersonal strife, you'll probably like it. If you like Kanye but, like me, would like to see him be less self-centered and superficial, you'll probably like it. If you like Daft Punk but sometimes wish they had less abstract lyrics, you'll probably like it. Finally, if you just like a nice, smooth, thoughtful album which you can listen to straight through, hear some interesting ideas and keep your toe tapping the whole time, then I think you'll love it.

Happy listening and, as always, Share & Enjoy!

Medical Marijuana and Ulcerative Colitis

2009-10-15T21:00:00.000-04:00

Medical marijuana...medicative mary jane......restorative reefer...curative cannabis...prescription pot...therapeutic THC...with-a-doctor's-note weed. (I could probably amuse myself thinking of this kind of play on words for hours, but since this is going to be a pretty long post as it is, I'll try to contain myself and keep it as brief as possible.)

It seems that the legalization of marijuana for recreational uses may actually happen in California, and legalization for medical uses is just around the corner in many states, including my home state of Maryland. This is, for the most part, what prompted me to write this up. Enjoy.

Part 1 - Why It's Okay for Pot to be Legal

If you want a more comprehensive, funnier version of this argument, I suggest you let Penn & Teller convince you on their Showtime program "Bullshit!" (for free here). In short, though, the so-called "War on Drugs" has failed and continues to fail and is taking millions of dollars in tax-payer money with it. As P&T point out, the "War on Drugs" was concocted by Richard Nixon to, among other reasons, distract the American public from the very real, very controversial war going on in Vietnam. P&T then show similarities between the WOD and Prohibition, which was the result of a movement spearheaded by various Protestants who felt that alcohol abuse was immoral and that, eventually, the only way to stop it was to make the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within...the United States...prohibited" (from the 18th Amendment). Of course, since a 20-30 year movement wasn't going to stop a 12,000 year old tradition of getting hammered, organized crime rings stepped in to provide alcohol illegal. Result: many innocent people died from turf wars, gang violence, and improperly made hooch. Sound familiar? Keep reading. Defenders of the current policy claim a "moral framework" which backs this "tough love" approach to drug abuse. They also claim that the program is succeeding based on their assertion that drug use has gone down. However, as Penn points out, "since 1994, marijuana use is up more than 62% among high school seniors" and cocaine and Ecstasy use is up as well. Well, then maybe we're just trying to lower the supply of "dangerous" drugs so less people have the opportunity to make the "wrong choice" by abusing drugs. Penn's got you there, too. For the same amount of money that it would cost to buy an amount of heroin in 1960 (before the WOD), you could buy 600 times that amount today. It's more available, and it's much much cheaper. But what about this "moral framework" stuff?

As many weed-puffing, beer-chugging college students have noticed, "What is the big fucking difference between marijuana and alcohol?" By any definition, alcohol is a drug and it is Americans' drug of choice. However, it is our right as Americans of legal age to get as drunk as we want, even to kill ourselves doing so, so long as we don't harm anyone else. As it should be. We should be educating people as to the dangers of alcohol abuse, but not telling them how much or whether they can drink. Similarly, there are dangers involved with drug use, but people should be educated as to these dangers instead of told they should "Just Say No", to quote Nancy Reagan. "Say no" to what? To reason? To freedom of choice?

Next we have the "gateway drug" argument, which claims that the first drug many heroin, cocaine, and crack users do is MJ. Well, as anyone can guess, that title falls to alcohol or tobacco. However, since those are legal and a part of our culture, I guess they're considered before the gateway.

Finally, let me say that marijuana is extremely safe (relative to other drugs, psychoactive and otherwise) and non-toxic. Whereas drugs like alcohol and even simple Tylenol will kill you if you take a little too much, this is virtually impossibly with THC (the main psychoactive substance in marijuana). In fact, scientists had trouble determining just how much it takes to kill a rat, monkey, etc. because it's so hard to ingest a lethal amount of THC, unless it is done intravenously. One estimate suggests that a human would have to smoke 1500 pounds of Cannabis in about 15 minutes in order receive a lethal dose of THC. Pay attention now, because this is important: In all of medical history there has NEVER been a single substantiated case of someone dying or sustaining permanent injuries as a result of marijuana overdose. (Check it here and here)

If you accept these ideas, at least as they pertain to marijuana, let's move on. Otherwise, watch the show, then feel free to comment.

Part 2 - Medical Use

First, know that much of medicine and pharmacology is aimed at alleviating symptoms, not curing diseases. With that in mind, I'll get right to the point. Marijuana has been shown to have over 250 medical applications (check out the Wikipedia page, and check their sources). This includes, but is not limited to, treatment of nausea, vomiting, PMS, lack of appetite, neurogenic pain, asthma, glaucoma, fibromyalgia, motor and vocal tics associated with Tourette's, ADHD, rheumatoid arthritis, colo-rectal cancer, Huntington's disease, sleep apnea, depression, autism, hepatitis C, leukemia, and the list just goes on and on. It has even shown to be useful in treating alcohol abuse and ulcerative colitis (more on that in just a minute). Check it out for yourself. This isn't just a small list of obscure afflictions. These are serious illness that cause pain, suffering and death every single day and for which marijuana can be used to, at least, alleviate symptoms and help patients deal with those conditions.

Part 3 - The Obstacles

At least some of the credit for the ideas in this section go to my roommate who first brought them to my attention. The major (non-cultural) obstacles to legalizing marijuana, at least for medical uses, are the interests that benefit from it being illegal. The first is the pharmaceutical industry which makes obscene amounts of money selling us pills. I feel like 95% of the drug commercials I see these days are for anti-depression medications which have a list of severe side-effects a mile long. Of course, depression is a very real problem and medication has helped many people, but the last thing the drug companies want is a single, relatively affordable, non-patentable drug to be on the market that can help treat 250+ ailments. They'd rather sell us a different pill for every problem.

The other group that benefits from the criminalization of marijuana is the current prison system. These days, many prisons are run by companies that contract with the government to hold inmates. There's money to be made (and lots of it) in keeping people locked away; the more people the better the profit. These companies would much prefer to fill their prisons with non-violent small-time users who get convicted on possession charges. Better that than a prison full of murderers and rapists, right? So, although our prison system is bursting at the seams, it's filled with people who don't deserve to be there and who are there for the wrong reason anyway.

Part 4 - My Place in All This

This is the last part, you're almost there.

As my astute readers might guess, I have a personal stake in all this as well. I'm a pretty average college student, I would say, in regards to pot and alcohol consumption. However, what brought this on was not my pursuit of a "good time". It was the realization that I've been dealing with ulcerative colitis (warning: icky) for about 10 years now. I won't go into the details in this post, but suffice to say, it is a somewhat debilitating disease that has no cure at this time, and which has effected my social, active, academic and work life in ways that I'm sure I don't even appreciate, since it's the only thing I really know. There are medications, but unfortunately I'm in a small minority of people for whom these medications actually make the disease worse rather than better. In my recent research on the matter I found testimonial after testimonial of people who have used marijuana to help them lead a more normal life, and indeed I have also experienced it firsthand, albeit illegally. This, along with the many other examples of people treating their pain and suffering and the evidence I have presented above, has convinced me that there is no moral or rational justification for the continued prohibition of marijuana for medical purposes.

If you still don't agree with me, please watch the episode of "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!", then feel free to leave a comment with your questions, concerns, evidence, and whatever else. Please, though, keep it civil. I don't want anyone's mellow to get harshed.

Wikipedia Wednesdays: Placebo Button

2009-09-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

Some of my more anxious and astute readers may notice that this wasn't actually posted until Thursday. I had an extremely busy day yesterday and didn't get finished writing this until the next morning. Anyway, I assure you that the bulk of this article was written last night.

The idea for this post came a good friend of mine. It immediately struck a chord with me, though I still don't know how I really feel about it. Without further ado, the triumphant return of Wikipedia Wednesday with...

Placebo Button

As the article says this is "a push-button that appears to do something, but actually has no effect, like a placebo." A good example of this is a cross-walk button which actually does nothing because the lights always change regularly and pedestrians are allowed to cross during every cycle.

I think I had an experience with what I assume was a placebo button this summer. It was an elevator which was already pretty slow and so I was usually compelled to press the "Door Close" button. However, it seemed to have no bearing on how quickly the door closed, which was painfully slow. This, of course, did not actually function as a placebo because it was even more infuriating than the elevator would've been without the button at all, as you can imagine. Feel free to post any personal experiences you have with placebo buttons in the comments.

Share & Enjoy!

Back from a Long Break

2009-09-10T11:30:00.004-04:00

Greetings, courteous reader! This summer was longer and busier than I had anticipated, and I seem to have fallen off the blog wagon (or perhaps gotten back on the laziness wagon). In any case, since school being back in session forces me to schedule my life more rigidly, I'll be doing my best to keep up with this whole endeavor. So that I don't spend this entire post apologizing for being lame, here are some things going on in my life that will probably find their way into a blog post or two:

School

In the fall semester of my final year in the UMBC American Studies department, I'm doing a lot of heavy stuff. Most of that will be my Senior Seminar, wherein I'll be learning about research methods and academic writing for the purpose of eventually writing a 20-25 page final research paper. The topic of the course this semester is political culture, but I have yet to nail down my specific focus for the paper. Additionally, I'm signed up to take my required Internship Seminar this semester. Again, I'm still tracking down an internship, but once I get started I'll probably start cross-posting items from the blog which I have to keep for the class portion. Finally, I'm taking TV in American Culture. So far, it's a fairly interesting class, and I'll probably be posting my thoughts on some TV Culture-related topics throughout the semester.

My other two classes are in Phys. Ed. (jogging and weight training), so I may bring that up at some point.

Not School

As I said above, I'll be going to an internship, so I might post about this in some sort of non-school context. Also, I may (hopefully) have some sort of job and, depending on what that ends up being, I may talk about that. I'll also be returning to the UMBC Ultimate Team (Booya Ultimate) for my third and final year and probably playing in some other venues as well. I can't say that I foresee a lot of Ultimate-related posts, but I'll keep my ear to the proverbial ground.

Finally, for those of you brave enough to have read all this boring filler, I'm interested in featuring some guest-posts. By now, I think the focus of this blog is pretty well-defined so I think you know the kind of topics I'd be looking for. Of course, I'm also open to new ideas. If you think you might like to contribute, shoot me an e-mail at daniel.paoletti@gmail.com letting me know what you'd like to write about.

Wikipedia Wednesday: Therizinosaurus

2009-06-10T10:00:00.001-04:00

Sorry for doing another biology-related Wikipedia Wednesday. I think that about 70% of what blows my mind on Wikipedia is in the biological fields. The other 30% is mostly to do with technology and theoretical physics, but even I find that a little boring. Anyway,...

Therizinosaurus

This is a dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous Period (about 70 million years ago) and, apart from being another big reptile that could frighten and/or kill us before we could say "life will find a way", it's a pretty average member of the genus Theropoda...except for its massive one-meter-long SCYTHE-LIKE claws. Ahhhhh!!! This thing looks like Wes Craven designed it to haunt our darkest dreams. Don't worry, though: like most therizinosaurs, it was probably herbivorous. Still, meter-long claws? The only practical purpose I can think of for such an exaggerated feature is to make Sam Neill pee his pants in half the time.

Share & Enjoy!

Point(s) of Order

2009-06-04T15:00:00.000-04:00

As some of my more astute readers have noticed, the post-finals content of this blog have been somewhat lacking. This is, of course, due to my laziness and not, in any way, related to the large amount of writing I had to do up until the end of the semester, the four-day trip to Columbus, OH that took place over the following weekend, or the 9- to 12-hour workdays that I am now enjoying.

Right now, I'm trying to work out a schedule that will keep me writing regularly and yet not force me to come up with content just for its own sake. To this end, I think I'm going to be imposing a twice, possibly thrice, weekly posting schedule. The days that I hope to come out with posts will probably be Sunday, Wednesday and (maybe) Fridays. This way, I can keep the Wikipedia Wednesdays going and have all weekend to think of something original and enlightening to say, rather than just copying my content from the backs of cereal boxes. If this goes well and doesn't seem like too much work, I'll start adding days to the schedule.

A Glimpse in the Future: As a means of atonement (or scapegoating) the next few posts will probably deal with the reasons I've been so busy the last few weeks. Therefore, look out for posts on subjects such as the UPA (Ultimate Players Association) College Nationals (which I attended), My New Job with a Moving Company, and The Topics of My Final Papers.

Wikipedia Wednesday: Wolfe+585, Senior

2009-04-22T21:30:00.001-04:00

A little late today, because I couldn't find anything that struck my fancy, until I stumbled on this little gem.

Wolfe+585, Senior

Okay, so there's this guy who was born near Hamburg, Germany. He's got the longest personal name ever used. His full name is...Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorffvoralternwarengewissenhaftschaferswessenschafewarenwohlgepflegeundsorgfaltigkeitbeschutzenvonangreifendurchihrraubgierigfeindewelchevoralternzwolftausendjahresvorandieerscheinenwanderersteerdemenschderraumschiffgebrauchlichtalsseinursprungvonkraftgestartseinlangefahrthinzwischensternartigraumaufdersuchenachdiesternwelchegehabtbewohnbarplanetenkreisedrehensichundwohinderneurassevonverstandigmenschlichkeitkonntefortplanzenundsicherfreuenanlebenslanglichfreudeundruhemitnichteinfurchtvorangreifenvonandererintelligentgeschopfsvonhinzwischensternartigraum, Senior.

A full translation can be found near the end of the article, which is rather amusing. Unsurprisingly, he grew up to become a typesetter.

Share & Enjoy!

George Will and His Fashion Crusade

2009-04-21T20:30:00.000-04:00

My friend and divining rod for everything that pisses me off, Warren, posted this link on Facebook last week. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't wait until all my weekly obligations were fulfilled to write about it here so, naturally, I put it off for a week. I'll try to restrain myself, but...

My initial reaction was to start with a cleverly subtle critique like "George Will is an asshole." However, when I forced myself to really reflect on why this article frustrated me so, I realized that the most irritating thing is to wonder how George Will manages to get paid (by a highly respected national newspaper, no less) to write this piece of crap which, although largely opinion, is based on some very basic fallacies.

His main and most general point is that wearing jeans all the time is wrong because they are either misappropriated or childish. This means that, in George F. Will's mind, there is some essential immutable quality that jeans possess that ascribes a certain meaning to their wearers. Why don't senators wear togas, because I feel that that is the most appropriate attire for democratic debate. You see, the roles people occupy in society are reflected by the clothes they wear, but those roles and the rules of fashion which signify them change all the time.

Then, the whole "don't blame Levi Strauss" craziness started. To George Will, there's something wrong with hippies and cubicle-workers wearing jeans (Fridays only for the cubicle slaves) when they were originally invented for burly frontiersmen who were panning for gold. Again, the togas thing. Original function means nothing, especially since his argument is about fashion, not utility.

And another thing...I take some offense at the implication that video games and cartoons are inherently childish. Just because most of the examples of video games and cartoons from the past are just for fun and are geared towards younger people doesn't mean that there's anything inherently "childish" about the medium itself. Also, neither of these things make something childish. Why, when something is just for fun, must it be childish? I will not feel bad when I am still playing video games at 50, because they're fun. I like to have fun. Doesn't George Will?

PCA/ACA Conference: Day 3

2009-04-14T11:30:00.004-04:00

I know, I know. Late post, blah blah blah. This one will be a little shorter because I went to more sessions which were outside my normal area of interest and I didn't feel like taking notes that I would understand later. In fact, I only have one paper to report on, then I'll move on to the conference as a whole.

“Beyond the Gaze: Eroticization and Identification with Lara Croft”

This was in the first Undergraduate session I attended and I was really glad I did. The only difference I saw, despite rumors indicating otherwise, was that the presenters were more timid and it was more like seeing a paper being read in class. More on this below. The first half of this paper, given by a student from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was rather trite and went over all the ways in which the creators of the Tomb Raider series objectified women by making Lara Croft so sexy. She talked about how her identity is "obscured" because her face is rarely shown. However, this is a convention of third-person shooters and not intended to rob Lara of personality. She moved on to the curious phenomenon of Tomb Raider, being one of the first and certainly the most successful video game with a female protagonist, that is the user (almost always male) having control over the female avatar. This was more interesting because it conjured issues of "agency" which is a major subject of scrutiny in feminist theory. However, she still had a curious way of framing everything as abuse towards the character, as if exploiting a cheat code to make Lara Croft naked was equivalent to forcing a live woman to be naked. Finally, she questioned the kind of role-model Lara is with her body type and exploits being so unrealistic. For the most part, this paper made me question a lot of stock American Studies and feminist jargon. In general, I agree with the vague assertion that Lara Croft objectifies women, but if the only way to not do that is to give the player a realistic idea of what being a woman in our society is like, then it won't be in the form of a video game because earning 75 cents to the dollar in middle management isn't very action-packed.

I had a vague idea of writing some sort of wrap-up for the conference here. It's hard to say how I feel about it, seeing, as I do now, through the haze of retrospect. I don't know if I had any concrete expectations going into it, though I suppose if I did, then they probably weren't met. As I said back in the "Day Zero" post (linked above), I've spent a lot of time crusading for the kind of things that would've allowed me to present at this conference and I was happy to have other people who were more interested in doing it than I was. After it became clear that there would have been nothing to stop me from presenting had I just submitted an abstract to a different area, I became increasingly uninterested in the issue. Getting to just chill out and absorb information at the various sessions had its own perks, including many ideas for future blog posts. In the end, the conference just made me start thinking about my own future.

The real kick in the old crotch in this regard, though, was Facebook-friending a grad student from Delaware, who had given a rather brilliant paper on Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, and finding out that she was born in 1986 as well. I know, I transferred and only started in American Studies in my fifth year, and I'm cool with all that, but having been in a place where some people, at least, clearly valued the kind of work she's doing so much as to exclude the lowly work I'm doing made the difference seem that much greater. In the end, I'm grateful for the experience and New Orleans is always a treat.

PCA/ACA Conference: Day 2

2009-04-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

Alright, the new deadline for reports of a day’s sessions is the following morning, because I’m finding it hard to churn them out at 11 o’clock at night. Again, lots to talk about, so let’s get to it.

“’Hi, I’m a Mac and I’m Aristotle’: How the Ancient Rules of Rhetoric Influence the Mac Vs. PC Advertisements” and “iRhetorics: The ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC’ Campaign”

The first and last sessions I attended yesterday contained papers on the rhetoric in the “Get a Mac” advertising campaign. Both made pretty similar points, so I’ve combined them here. In short, both speakers confirmed that the commercial spots utilize classic Aristotelian rhetoric. The person representing the Mac (Justin Long) never belittles or insults the person representing the PC (John Hodgman). In fact, he takes a very Platonic and Socratic role, seeming to help the PC along in a way which, ultimately, reveals the flaws in his arguments and design. I spent a lot of these sessions thinking about the effectiveness of these ads. Clearly, they are very popular (and thus effective) and I think this is because of the simplistic nature of the ads which is partly because of the classic rhetoric. Additionally, Mac starts on inherently unequal ground because Mac is selling computers whereas “PC” is selling an operating system. The “Get a Mac” ads are directed at Windows, not Dell, HP, IBM or any of the other companies that make the actual hardware on which Windows runs. Remember that the next time you see “Get a Mac” advertisement. There aren’t many like this, but if they are talking about the short comings of hardware, they’re no longer targeting Windows.

“Spectacular Trash or Feminist Sport? The Mixed Messages of and Responses to Women’s Roller Derby”

This paper was right up my alley, so to speak, owing to my affinity for Roller Derby, thanks for which goes to my sister who first exposed me to the sport. I was glad to actually hear some new researched information (as opposed to analysis). I learned that Roller Derby started during the Depression and was originally just a race around a track featuring both men and women (the presenter didn’t say if there were separate leagues). Then, during World War II it became female-only, and this is the first time that reviews started calling it a “legitimate sport.” The first images many of us have of the beginnings of Roller Derby are of the televised leagues in the 70s which were more similar to pro wrestling. This was due to the influence of the shows’ producers trying to salvage poor ratings by scripting much of the action. Then, of course, the sport died out only to be resurrected as the semi-third-wave-feminist sport we all know and love. The speaker went over many criticisms of modern Roller Derby, but many of them boil down to the question of whether these women are merely a spectacle akin to mud wrestling. First, it's important to note that all televised sports are inherently a spectacle to some extent. Additionally, though, anyone who has been roller skating knows that this sport requires real athletic prowess. The ‘spectacle’ part of Roller Derby is a semi-parodic way of being able to question, enforce, destabilize, and poke fun at the norms of both femininity and feminism. Finally, the speaker asserted that Roller Derby is “not an imitation of men’s sports” but rather an arena wherein women can redefine athletic competition and teamwork instead of merely fitting in to sports which were created by men and in which men dominate. Also the athletes tend to fill the trope of the "unruly woman" and this persona, says some writer I don't remember, "breaks the unwritten rule that women should not make spectacles of themselves, and allows these women to gain back their ability to desire." I’ll probably write more about Roller Derby at a later date because I could go on forever.

“Wall-E Exploits Twentieth Century Sci-Fi Traditions”

More Wall-E! Everyone is doing a paper on Wall-E this year and this was the first I saw that actually expressed clear dissatisfaction with the film. The speaker did make it clear that she enjoyed the movie very much, but she also said that the ending almost ruined it for her entirely (the award-winning credit sequence saved it for her). Before I go on, although I feel that the ending of Wall-E cannot be “ruined” by knowing what happened because the satisfaction comes from seeing the whole film, I will say that I will be talking about the end of the movie and am therefore issuing a Spoiler Alert. Her basic problem with the ending was that it was too unrealistic and simple (the word ‘facile’ may have been said about a million times), even for a children’s movie. That these large, unhealthy and baby-like humans who seem to have almost no grasp of farming would never survive on an Earth which is still mostly ruined. She also drew many parallels to both Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Personally, I couldn’t help but think of Star Wars which, as my roommate said (I think), draws a lot criticism from sci-fi fans because it is actually a space opera and that the ‘sci’ part takes a backseat. Similarly, Wall-E is, to me, a story about love which also explores what it means to be human and thus the science takes a backseat and tends to be a little stretched or inaccurate. Even a great movie can’t be great in every way.

PCA/ACA Conference: Day 1

2009-04-10T09:00:00.002-04:00

Alright, I know. In traditional academic fashion I requested (and received) an extension from myself for this report on the first day of the conference. My mom and I are sharing an internet connection (which, even in the Marriott we're staying in, costs fifteen bucks a day...more on that later). Anyway, a lot to cover, so let's get to it.

A great way to start a conference; I attended two presentations based on that most adorable of animated movies: Wall-E

“Performing Gender, Performing Romance: Pixar’s Wall-E”

I got to the room a bit late because it was on the mysterious 4th floor, to which the elevators do not go. However, once I got myself situated, I found this really interesting. The presenter focused on the way(s) that Pixar took two gender-less, inanimate objects (the robots, Wall-E and Eve) and imbued in them a gender for the sake of the love story. I'm not sure if she ever used the term 'hetero-normative', but that's what I thought of immediately. Though, I certainly don't blame Pixar, because a heterosexual relationship would probably be the simplest way to present a love story which abounds with various other confusing factors, such as the theme that Wall-E (a robot) shows the humans in the movie how to be human again. I wish I'd been there for the whole paper, but it certainly opened up a world to think about with regards to Wall-E.

“The Future is Fat: Wall-E and the Fear of a Fat Planet?”

This was in a fat studies panel and the other papers being given we're also very interesting. In this case, the presenter opened up the floor to comments and questions throughout her talk, which I really liked because it really helped to expand the conversation. In short, the focus of the paper was on the depiction of '"fat = evil" in the semi-dystopian future of Wall-E. In fact, the director, Andrew Stanton, said that the adults in Wall-E are supposed to be sort of like "big babies" and that they consulted NASA on the effects of long term space travel. However, inaccuracies abound, like the reference to "the effects of micro-gravity" having produced these large pudgy adults. It would seem, in the movie, that gravity aboard the Axiom (the spaceship) is roughly equivalent to Earth normal since Wall-E and other characters seem to fall at the same rate we would naturally expect. Even if you believe that there is less than Earth gravity, there's no reason that they would grow so fat. They passively accept food (such as cupcake in a cup) which I would imagine is a pleasantly flavored supplement filled with proteins and vitamins. I could write forever on this subject (and maybe I will, at some point), but the end result is that the people who produced Wall-E may have been tapping into our prejudice against fat people to set up the transformation from evil (idleness, passivity, sloth, gluttony) to good (an agrarian culture, activity, agency, etc.)

Finally, I attended a session on Internet Culture which focused, more or less, on Social Network Sites (Facebook, mainly) and Personal Media Devices (iPods, iPhones, etc.) and their possibly application in education. Each of the four papers had their merits, and there were a lot of interesting insights. For instance, encouraging students to use laptops and to google information and to look things up on Wikipedia and to roam the internet in a way that enhances the educational experience. The most controversial paper was, surprisingly, the chair of that Session and the only presenter over 30. He spoke about the "culture of illiteracy" on the internet. Basically, that people don't know how to "read" websites and that creators of websites compound this problem by ensuring no one has to read to understand their website. I found this to be "a load of hooey" (source unknown) because he seems to see everything in life as some form of text to be read. Why doesn't he get irritated by movie makers not including paragraphs of text to accompany their stories? How can he enjoy an opera that doesn't offer the libretto (script, kind of) for him to read at the same time? These are all different media and they don't work in the same way and people don't use them in the same way. For a person who, in his words, is the "tech guy" in his department, he doesn't seem to be very "with" the times, culturally.

PCA/ACA Conference: Day 0

2009-04-08T23:30:00.002-04:00

Well, here I am in sunny New Orleans (it's 11:30 at night, so not really). I enjoyed a relatively relaxing 25 hour train ride down here and the proverbial shit has already hit the proverbial fan.

As, I'm sure, I didn't describe earlier, I had attempted to submit an abstract to the Internet Culture area chair and was rejected, ostensibly because the panel was "full" but probably because I'm an undergraduate student. Now, normally, I wouldn't jump to this conclusion, but there seem to be more than a few legitimate reasons.

First, although I'd been going back and forth via e-mail with the area chair for some time, she never mentioned that the panel was full until I mentioned that I was an undergrad. However, she did also inform me that my abstract "needs work in terms of writing style and clarity" and that I should "work with a professor experienced in submitting conference papers to prepare an abstract...for next year's PCA." Needless to say, I did the original research for a professor at UMBC and, naturally, had my mom (a professor) look over it again because I was somewhat anxious about submitting for the first time.

In the intervening time, I'd been put on the wait list for the undergraduate panel. However, when I arrived and my registration materials weren't at the table, my mom and I got the chance to talk to the registrar one-on-one. She claimed that it was PCA policy not to let undergraduates present papers in the regular areas. This seems rather suspect since (1) there are no such guidelines in the call for papers or anywhere else on their website, (2) my mother has had students who have given papers in the past without incident, and (3) I've noticed a group of four undergraduates (possibly freshmen) from Elon who are presenting in the very area (Internet Culture) in which I had meant to present. The registrar further explained that this policy was in place because some professors didn't want to hear papers written by undergraduates (the assumption being that they will be of worse quality). Finally, she agreed with us that the PCA is "very accepting" because they accept almost any paper sent to them (unless it's by a undergrad, apparently).

Now that you know the story, here's my subtle critique of the matter: Ridiculously arbitrary and discriminatory. Here are my reasons:

1. There are, as I said, no requirements stated in the call for papers.
2. Many other non-American Studies and non-PhD folk are allowed to submit papers and, since they don't ask for credentials of any kind, one could be an "independent scholar", which is to say, just some guy (or gal).
3. As far as I know, these alleged professors who don't want to hear student papers are under no obligation to do so. If they don't want to be at the presentation, they can find some other panel to attend at that time.
4. Since papers are not reviewed for quality, there's no reason to believe that any of the ones that are accepted are of any level of quality, better or worse than could be expected of an undergraduate.

In the end, maybe I'm just too "old and tired", but I've been doing things in the realm of youth empowerment for at least 6 years now and this is one of the worst, most arbitrary cases of discrimination I've seen. Especially since being an undergraduate student doesn't necessarily mean that one is between the ages of 18 and 22. The most frustrating thing about it is how illogical their reasons are. They accept, literally, almost any paper sent to them, but reject undergraduates because they might not be up to some unknown standard of quality.

This isn't the end, though. I'm going to be checking in with several other people in my area, both undergraduate and otherwise, and seeing how I can contribute, if they're interested. Also, I'll be attending many interesting presentations myself and I'll be writing about those starting tomorrow.

Fair Warning

2009-04-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

Real content has been rather lacking here on Gratis and Libre in the past few weeks. This is due to several factors including (but not limited to) going to Georgia for Spring Break, being really busy with schoolwork, playing a ridiculous(ly fun) amount of Ultimate frisbee, and just being plain lazy. Hopefully, I will be making up for this lack of content by bringing you:

A Series of Blog Posts Documenting My Travels to the PCA/ACA National Conference in New Orleans!

Today, at 6:30, I'll be taking a train down to New Orleans to attend the PCA (Popular Culture Association) / ACA (American Culture Association) National Conference with my mom who, as well as being a professor of American Studies herself, is largely responsible for me becoming interested in this kind of stuff and thus becoming an American Studies major.

Due to one thing and another, I may or may not be presenting a paper on the politics of self-representation on Facebook and other Social Network Sites. However, I will be attending and writing about many variously themed presentations over the course of the week and generally schmoozing (read: shamelessly promoting myself) with people from all over the country who are even bigger nerds about this kind of stuff than I am.

This will also be the first time that I've been to New Orleans since I was 17. Now, if you've ever been there, you know New Orleans is a really fun and interesting place, but that most of the fun isn't accessible to people who are under 18. I'm not sure how much free time I'll have yet, but if I can get out and goof around in the city, you can expected a post or two about that.

Something for everyone!*

*As long as you are interested in popular culture, New Orleans, or the ramblings of a student/dork of American Studies who may or may not be trying to hastily fire off a blog post so he can get back to the hot tub. Enjoy!

Wikipedia Wednesday: Io's Flux Tube

2009-04-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

Some of the alleged readers of this blog might think that I chose this topic just so I could use the phrase "flux tube" over and over again. Well, these alleged readers might be right, but this is also really cool, in my opinion of god-like humility.

Io's Flux Tube

You have to look all the way down at the last paragraph in the indicated section to find what I'm talking about. I'll try to make it more simple. Io (one of the moons of Jupiter) repeatedly crosses Jupiter's magnetic field lines. The resulting "friction", so to speak, creates a very large electrical current which flows from Io to Jupiter's poles. Also, the magnetosphere of Jupiter picks up 1 tonne (2204.6226 pounds) of gas and dust from Io's thin atmosphere every second. After that it gets a bit complicated, so I'll just let you read it yourself if you're brave enough.

Share & Enjoy!

Wikipedia Wednesday: The Bechdel Test

2009-03-25T10:00:00.002-04:00

This Wikipedia Wednesday comes courtesy of my friend Jack, who introduced me to this concept back in January. I later searched for it and, surprise surprise, found it on Wikipedia.

The Bechdel Test

This test comes from a comic strip, written by Alison Bechdel, called Dykes to Watch Out For. According to the Wikipedia article, this strip, which began in 1983, is "one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in popular culture."

The Bechdel Test comes from the comment, made by a character, that she only watches movies if it meets three requirements, which are:

1. It has at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

In modern interpretations, the women must have names, but others simply modify the third requirement to be that two or more women must advance the plot by their dialogue. These seem like pretty basic requirements, but if you start going down the list of the top-grossing movies of all time, you'll find that very few, if any, meet them.

The greatest find in this Wikipedia article, though, is the link to a recently-started blog which reviews movies based on these criteria. It's pretty funny and certainly made me think about some of the more inane movies which have achieved recent popularity.

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Guys and Gals

2009-03-12T10:00:00.006-04:00

This musing relates, in some ways, to what I blathered on about on Monday. Similarly, it's something I've thought of several times in the past. It probably first occurred to me during a discussion of gender neutral language. There seem to be people out there, like the people who won't tolerate split infinitives, who aren't creative enough to write without the use of gendered pronouns. It really isn't that hard, but that isn't really what this post is about.

What it is about is my general frustration at a specific short-coming of our language. Perhaps a more visual representation will be illustrative:

Male.......................Female
Boy..........................Girl
Man.........................Woman
Martian...................Venusian
Guy..........................???

Now, I'm fine with referring to a mix-gendered group with a casual "Hey, guys." It may not be the greatest thing to happen to gender relations, but it isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. What frustrates me is when I'm referring to a specific female whom the person I'm talking to doesn't know. For instance, "Yesterday, I saw this ??? I know in the Commons." The two ways to fill the blank ('girl' or 'woman') both seem inappropriate.

I think the general fall-back is 'girl', but in this day and age, it seems a little demeaning to call one of my female peers a 'girl' especially when I would never refer to a male friend as a 'boy'. However, 'woman' usually connotes an older woman, or at least one who is more mature relative to the speaker. Basically, they are analogues to 'boy' and 'man' and the problem is that there is no female analogue to 'guy'. The true analogue to 'guy' is 'gal' but somehow I just can't bring myself to call my female friends 'gals'.

Any and all suggestions or made up words which would obviate this problem are welcome. For now, I may have to stick to "female contemporary of approximately equal social standing."

Wikipedia Wednesday: Turritopsis Nutricula

2009-03-11T10:00:00.002-04:00

Wikipedia Wednesday is upon us once again. Hooray! This one took a bit of hunting down, because I remembered reading about this general topic but couldn't remember the actual subject of the article. Anyway, without any further ado...

Turritopsis Nutricula

Turritopsis Nutricula is a hydrozoan (a class of species related to jellyfish) which reverts to its polyp stage after reproducing (technically, propagating). This means that this is the only species in the animal kingdom which is biologically immortal. It can repeat its life cycle again and again; theoretically, forever.

The only other possible example of this is species in the genus Hydra, which appear to undergo senescence (aging) very slowly, if at all.

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Whatta (Wo)Man

2009-03-09T11:00:00.002-04:00

In a frantic dash to get something published here before the next Wikipedia Wednesday, I'm posting this in the midst of, possibly, one of the busiest weeks of the semester. Which isn't to say that this post is rushed. In fact, I've been thinking about this topic for some time.

The topic is music and, more specifically, song lyrics and their gender-ambiguity or lack thereof. Just so you know how I came across this notion, let me first say that I sing along to almost every song I own. Mostly, in the car, but I'm not shy about doing it in public. In fact, I have trouble not singing along because I have an amazing/annoying memory for song lyrics. I, however, rarely encounter the feeling of misappropriation that comes with singing a love song which is in the context of a man singing about a woman.

To put it simply, I've noticed that most songs use pronouns and language that identify the singer as male or they avoid these words altogether. I noticed this while listening to the Save Ferris album It Means Everything. This band has a female lead singer, but not once in the entire album do they use language which identifies her as such. Many earlier examples exist as well, including Aretha Franklin. 'Chain of Fools', 'Respect', and 'Since You've Been Gone' are all ambiguous. Even 'I Never Loved a Man' is somewhat ambiguous except for the title which is also the chorus. Then it gets even more complicated when you start talking about the intended recipient of these lyrics which, for those singing along, would apply to people who were attracted to men, no matter what their gender.

There isn't really a thesis to all of this. I think that we just relate to these gendered songs in different ways, though maybe we don't know it. I guess I'm interested, if my small group of female readers would care to comment, what women do when they sing along to the multitude of popular songs which identify the singer as male. There are so many, and some of them get stuck in your head so easily.

Wikipedia Wednesday: Simple English Wikipedia

2009-03-04T11:14:00.004-05:00

Well, it's Wednesday again, and I've been so busy writing papers (or not writing papers, as the case may be) that I haven't written a post since last Wikipedia Wednesday. I promise, this trend won't last. Anyway, onward and upward. Today's entry was inspired by a suggestion from my good friend Ben Lighter. He's got a podcast or some deal that I'll probably link from here in the future.

Simple English Wikipedia

This is a really cool idea and an example of how people are using the internet and wiki-tools for education. The Simple English Wikipedia is a version of Wikipedia wherein the articles are only written using the 2000 most common words in the English language and more basic sentence structure. Some articles, of course, require more than 2000 different words, and in these cases, the more complex words are explained in their own articles.

People have been using this useful off-shoot of Wikipedia as a tool for teaching people who have different needs such as children, adults with learning disabilities and people who are learning English as a second language.

Share & Enjoy!

Wikipedia Wednesday: Military Dolphins

2009-02-25T10:30:00.005-05:00

One of the things you'll come to know about me is that I think dolphins are really cool. In fact, I'll probably write a whole post, some time in the future, explaining why I think Douglas Adams was right when he said that dolphins are more intelligent than humans. However, today I'll be covering a much more eerie aspect of Delphinidae life.

Military Dolphins!

So, for at least 20 years, the U.S. Military has been training dolphins (and sea lions) to carry out some, at first basic, and later more complicated tasks. They found that dolphins' biosonar (and sea lions' excellent eyesight) made them very adept at locating underwater mines and enemy divers. Of course, if an enemy diver did see one of these cetacean operatives, they would just see them as a curious marine animal.

Here's the really crazy part: According to the Wikipedia article on Bottlenose Dolphins (under Interaction with Humans), "Navy scientists fit the dolphins with equipment that amplify their natural sonar pulses, and relay the information back to Navy Intelligence. The equipment strengthens the dolphin's sonar burst; giving the dolphin enhanced scouting abilities, and can even allow it to inflict damage on medium density materials such as low-grade steel, carbon-plating, and wood."

I just hope to God we keep a close eye on these underwater agents. I heard about this one dolphin who, probably like many of his brethren, was faster than lightening and also that no one, you see, was smarter than he. I don't want that coming to get me in the middle of the night.

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The Mighty Mos Def at the 9:30 Club

2009-02-24T10:46:00.007-05:00

Concert reviews are not something I envisioned for this blog, but this one is worth it, and maybe it'll become a regular fixture.

Last night my roommate, Chris, and I traveled to northwest Washington, D.C. in order to attend a Mos Def concert at the 9:30 Club.

The opening act was a hip hop artist out of Philadelphia named Hezekiah. He was pretty good and didn't make us wait too long for him to finish. Unfortunately, after Hezekiah finished his short set, we had to wait upwards of 90 minutes for Mos Def to arrive, due to his flight being delayed. When the rather lame 9:30 Club MC announced this, I was skeptical. However, Mos Def later called attention to his boarding pass which he had left in his pocket, and all (or most) was forgiven. Needless to say, after approximately three hours of standing, we were all ready to rock.

First, let me say that if you haven't heard much or any Mos Def before, you're missing out. Mos Def is a rare breed of performer. A rapper, an actor, and a poet, Mos Def is part of the "socially conscious hip hop" movement. I don't know how he feels about this term, but I feel that it makes it seem too exceptional, although it does draw attention to how far mainstream rap has fallen.

Mos Def's set was, for lack of a less pretentious word, sublime. The fun he has doing what he loves is infectious. His live lyrical style alternates between goofy and profound; reverent and irreverent. After his first or second song, Mos Def turned to his DJ and asked him to find some Chuck Brown, showing the D.C. crowd that he knew his Go-go as well. Several songs later, the funk-inspired strains of the proto-Go-go* song "Bustin' Loose" came through the speakers as MD riffed over it. Later, during a transition into a new song, Mos Def revisited this style while sampling "Get Out Of My Life, Woman" as performed by Joe Williams followed by "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles. For the very last song, off his upcoming album The Ecstatic, MD showed off his musical talent by starting his lyrics right on the first beat, a rare occurrence in rap and hip hop.

*This sounds like an indie album title.

In the end, Mos Def made it clear that he was very grateful for our patience and he seemed genuinely sorry that the show had to be shorter than expected due to the late start. I had been standing, at this point, for about five hours, my back and ankles were screaming at me, and I needed to pee pretty badly, but when I was standing there, a mere twenty feet from this genius of hip hop, I probably could have put up with it for another hour at least. Definitely a good night.

Professors' Delusions Seen as Causing Grade Disputes

2009-02-18T11:15:00.007-05:00

Normally, I won't be posting twice in one day, but this article from the New York Times caught my eye and my ire, and I couldn't resist.

As the child of a professor, I have been keenly aware of the song-and-dance surrounding grades in college for years. Mere hours after fall semester grades are released (usually when we are on a New Year's vacation) my mom will receive at least one, if not many, requests from students asking to talk about their grade (for those who don't know, that's code for "how can I convince you to give me a better grade"). However, I am also currently enrolled at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and know well the myriad of reasons a student might expect a higher grade. In this sense, I have a unique (read: superior) point of view on the matter.

The thing that set me off was Professor Marshall Grossman's comments in the beginning of the article. Let me be blunt so my ideas aren't misconstrued: If you think that a C is an average grade, you need to remove your head from your ass. Sure, we all remember the key in the corner of our grade school report cards (A = Outstanding, B = Above Average, C = Average, D = Below Average, E/F = Fail), but even a cursory analysis reveals this to be a steaming pile of horse shit.

The biggest problem is this: When is the last time you thought of a C-average (a 2.0) as acceptable? Which leads me to the second problem: If you think a C-average is acceptable, you definitely didn't go to Law School, Med School, etc. When has any post-secondary school ever seen a 2.0 as enough? If Prof. Grossman wants to crusade about the purity of the grading scale on his own time, that's his business, but in the meantime, he's putting students' futures in jeopardy.

The other thing that set me off (once I cooled down enough to read the rest of the article) was the litany of quotes from various professors and deans who, apparently, never went to college themselves. Here were a couple that stuck out:

"[Dean Hogge] said that if students developed a genuine interest in their field, grades would take a back seat, and holistic and intrinsically motivated learning could take place."

Sure, in a perfect world we'd all just sit around, get high, and expand the shit out of our minds, but as long as employers, grad schools, parents and the students themselves care about the quality of the learning that, supposedly, takes place, grades will never take a back seat.

Professor Brower said professors at Wisconsin emphasized that students must “read for knowledge and write with the goal of exploring ideas.”

Has this guy ever been to school? For some reason that needs to be researched, assigned reading is never as fun as reading for pleasure. Also, exploratory writing papers are few and far between. In the real world there are expectations meant to prove that you've done the reading, done the homework, been to class, etc.

Let me be very clear. I don't deny that grade inflation is a problem. On a five point scale, a two/C should be average. However, to say that students expect higher grades because they feel "entitled" to them demeans students. Students aren't that dumb (although they can be). Even if they don't know the reason, they expect B's and A's because they know others do too.

Wikipedia Wednesday: Bloop

2009-02-18T10:40:00.002-05:00

About a week ago, my mom lamented/suggested that somebody in the blogosphere should write about interesting stuff they find on Wikipedia. Clearly, this comes from her knowledge of my fondness for Wikipedia and my propensity for wasting hours of my time article-hopping. To this end I am instituting Wikipedia Wednesdays here at Gratis & Libre. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep it up every week, but we'll see how it goes.

To kick off this new feature, I've chosen one of my old favorites: Bloop.

"Bloop" is, perhaps, a cryptid, that is a mysterious, possibly mythical, animal like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. In reality, all we know is that it is an "ultra-low frequency underwater sound" detected by NOAA in the southern Pacific Ocean during the summer of 1997. It lasted about a minute and was loud enough to be detected over 5,000 km (3,100 miles) away. The few people who have studied the phenomenon have said that it most likely originated from something organic (i.e. not a submarine), but that an animal that could produce such a loud and low sound would have to be many times larger than a blue whale.

The Wikipedia article has a link at the bottom which leads you to the NOAA "Bloop" website which used to have the original recording, which turns out to be rather eerie at its normal speed. Unfortunately, they just have just have the version that's been sped up 16 times, but it's still better than the one second clip in the article. The only problem being that the sped up version isn't nearly as low...it sounds like a "bloop".

Share & Enjoy!

Persense

2009-02-16T17:49:00.011-05:00

One of the recurring themes of this blog will be posts which are, ultimately, my attempt at achieving immortality by establishing my part in the coining of a new term which, with a little luck, will become part of our spoken language. Much of these will come with help from my awesome roommates, shown here, for reference, in an awkward yet epic picture.

Persense

This word was coined sometime around October of 2008, and most of the credit for its invention goes to my roommate, Chris Cahoon (bottom middle of the above picture). Basically, it was in reaction to the lack of accuracy in the word "sense". For instance, when someone proffers a story, fact, or suggestion of questionable quality you might be compelled to say "Whoa man! That makes no sense." The quality of the remark remains unevaluated except with the seldom used qualifiers as in "zero sense", "almost no sense" and "complete sense". To make matters worse, suggestions or stories aren't totally without merit, but rather are simply not feasible, relevant, responsible, etc.

In order to rectify this bothersome situation, we have adopted the term "persense". Here is how to use it:

per·sense - noun - a part of complete, cogent, sound and practical judgement.

Example:

"This semester, I want to be less stressed. I'm just gonna party and drink and hook up with chicks."

"What about your classes?"

"Well, I'll probably hang on to my grades just enough that I can salvage them enough to pass in the last three weeks."

"Dude, that makes, at most, 5 persense."

You see, in this example, the idea is not totally without redeeming merit or backing evidence. Indeed, many college students attempt this lifestyle every semester, and many of them succeed. However, the conceit that this will relieve stress is, at best, wildly optimistic. Whether you are vaguely stressed throughout the semester or are overwhelmed with work at the end, the net amount stress remains largely the same. (More on the Conservation of Stress in a future post.)

The "persense" of any given scenario is dependent upon the opinions of the user and is, thus, quite subjective. However, to arrive at the number used in the example Chris and I discussed two major factors; (1) the actual persense of the scenario and (2) the success rate of such a plan. We felt that, objectively, this plan made about 2%s (the symbol for persense), but multiplied by an estimated 50% success rate for the average student, we arrived at a rating of 1 persense. Therefore, although it is a subjective term, it is important that the user can back up their claim, preferably with subjective figures and confusing math.

Here's the fun part. Start using "persense" in your daily life. It isn't hard to explain because it makes, at least, 95 persense. In five, ten, maybe twenty years maybe it'll make it into common parlance, or even become Webster's Word of the Year like "truthiness" did.

Autobiography -- Part 2

2009-02-12T10:49:00.003-05:00

We've got a lot to gloss over, so let's get right into it...

Chapter 3 -- High School: In a Word, Huh?

What can I say about my high school experience that hasn't already been said about cheap beer? Fun, intoxicating, a danger to brain cells, makes you feel like you're being smooth with the ladies when you're really just being creepy. You know the deal. Truth be told, I had a lot of fun in high school, especially near the end. High school was probably the pinnacle for my abilities to impress high school girls' mothers. During this time I...

...witnessed the election of George W. Bush and just barely cared.
...did poorly in classes until the last few weeks when I would pull out a B.

...represented my school three times on NBC's It's Academic.

...was really creeped out by Mac McGarry (a man who both interviewed me and covered Truman's inauguration).
...spent the better part of three weeks getting sick from the wrong kind of medication.
...which resulted in me spending five days in the hospital due to my ulcerative colitis.
...looked like a skeleton much of the time (or the 'wrath of God' as my grandmother would have had it).

High school was good times. I had a reputation as seeming a lot older (think 30 years or so) than I actually was (the term "crotchety" comes to mind). Through the filter of self-delusion, I like to see it as praise for being so mature. In retrospect, of course, I was extremely immature; a fact that presents absolutely no contradictions with the previous point.

Chapter 4 -- Frostburg, Catonsville, and Beyond

The last five years seem like a blur. They had a lot of ups and downs and I spent a lot of that time deeply mired in the present, but the reason, I think, it seems like a blur is because of the amazing amount of growth that's taken place in that time. Periods of idleness fueled subsequent periods of drastic change and the taking on (on-taking?) of ridiculous amounts of responsibility. Clearly, I'm still trying to find balance. Analysis will have to wait for another post, because there's far too much to cover here, but I'm sure another list will help. During this time I...

...traveled to more states and provinces than I care to mention.
...did the whole long-distance relationship thing (totally worth it; I would never do it again).
...lived on campus (in Frostburg).
...got my first straight A report card since, at least, middle school.
...lived off campus (in Catonsville).
...lived with my gracious parents.
...began training capoeira.
...lived on campus with strangers.
...joined the UMBC Ultimate team.
...live on campus with three Ultimate players.
...started this blog.
...made this list.

The End -- Only Not

Alright, folks. I'm bored with this idea, so I imagine you've been bored with it since Chapter 1, since no one is a bigger me-dork than I am. Next week, I'll start posting some (hopefully) more interesting stuff and start unveiling (that's right) some recurring theme's for this blog.

Autobiography -- Part 1

2009-02-11T11:16:00.018-05:00

As promised, the first thing to go up here will be something of an autobiography. Hopefully this will help frame my opinions in the future and help me to start exploring the writing style for this blog. Due to the length, it's been broken up into two parts, but even so I'll try to skip over (or embellish) the more boring parts.

Prologue -- The Measure of a Man

In the year nineteen hundred and eighty-six, on the twentieth day of November, in a suburb of Washington, D.C., while the show Taxi was on, Daniel John Paoletti was born to Jo B. Paoletti, a professor at the University of Maryland and James J. Paoletti, a carpenter who was, at that time, employed by former department store giant Woodward & Lothrop. The name 'Daniel' (meaning "God is my judge" in Hebrew) had been carefully selected as an obvious compromise between two warring proposals; Bruno and Paul (a story for another day). Truly, it had been fate, for from these humble beginnings would arise a man who would be above the judgment of all save The Almighty, Himself. (No one should have this much fun typing.)

Chapter 1 -- The Early Years

To begin, I grew up in Prince George's County, Maryland, about 5 miles from D.C. After a four or five year period in which I explored the philosophies and and social networks of Greenwood Nursery School, I began an elementary school experience which was as idyllic and innocent as any other. During this time I...

...played soccer, baseball, and basketball (all poorly).
...traveled to Sweden.
...cried at the end of Jack.
...began playing the alto saxophone.
...felt more awkward than I ever have since.

Chapter 2 -- Beauty and King Dork?

As with many children, middle school was a confusing mix of hell and things that just barely made it all worth it. This was when I started to become interested in learning for its own sake and yet not using this interest to get better grades. This is also the period in which I developed ulcerative colitis, something which has affected me in a big way ever since (another story for another another day). During this time I...

...played soccer (better now).
...got a few bad grades.
...cared about getting bad grades in a visceral way.
...got picked on regularly for being skinny and white (an affliction I carry to this day).
...continued playing the alto saxophone.
...began playing the baritone saxophone in Jazz Band.
...was oblivious to the affections of the few girls who had crushes on me.
...had my first girlfriend (this does not contradict the previous point).
...lost my first girlfriend two weeks later.

That's enough for now. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment...

Danny's High School and College Experiences:

Love, Italo-Germanic-American Style OR
Religiously Liberal: The Buck Stops Here!

Gratis and Libre Inaugural Post

2009-02-10T20:15:00.000-05:00

Alright folks! It's taken me a very long time to get this here blog started. Most (read: all) of the preparatory work has been trying to find a name and URL that satisfied my vision of what I want this blog to be. So, as an introduction, let me explain...

The Title - Gratis and Libre

This is pretty simple and comes from the expression "gratis versus libre" which is commonly invoked in the discussion of the open source movement, which I am a big fan of. You can read more about it here, but here's the simple version: gratis means "for zero price" and libre means "freedom". So, in this context, people in the open source movement often simplify it to the rather witty and convenient phrases "free as in beer" and "free as in speech", respectively.

As I said, I'm a big fan of this movement, and I'm sure I'll be using this blog to talk (read: rant) about it in the future.

The URL - Dear GloboChem

This is more silly, but might carry more meaning for this blog, though maybe I don't know how yet. This comes from a Mr. Show sketch (alas, it isn't on YouTube) wherein David Cross writes a couple of letters to Mr. Show's catch-all big evil corporation, GloboChem. In the first he expresses dissatisfaction with some product he bought from them and requests that they send him "as many free products as possible" in compensation. In the second, he has just received a death threat from Bob Odenkirk (for not having replied to his letters) and writes

Dear GloboChem,

Someone is trying to kill me! Please send me as many free products as possible.

Love,
David Cross

Hilarity. Relevance. Ripped from today's headlines.

So, this is what this blog will be. Me talking about things that interest me, ranting about things that piss me off, and generally dicking around in the blogosphere, blogocube, and blogodrome with about a million links to Wikipedia as reference (more on that later). Subsequent posts will be, without a doubt, much more well put together than this one -- I was just too excited to get started.

The next couple posts will include something like an autobiography and my first substantive post which will probably be on some of the things I've been learning and thinking about in my Gender and Inequality class.