Saturday, August 13, 2005
Human nature in an episode of M*A*S*H
Tonight, I saw "Communication Breakdown," the plotline of which is incorrectly given as, "Charles refuses to share newspapers from home"; that this was seen by some reviewer as a proper summary is more proof, if any is necessary, of how passionately people judge against anyone who's an outsider (who they should instead feel sympathy for).
Charles is a product of his background, as nearly all of us are; he's from a wealthy, privileged family, has no experience dealing with "common people," and doesn't want to gain any... and the others in the camp, for their part, never show any desire to try to understand, accept, or befriend HIM. He looks down on them, they turn their noses up at him; it's unfortunate, but probably unavoidable, that things would be that way, and at least it's even-neither side is shedding any tears over the lack of love from the other.
In this episode, the newspapers haven't been delivered for some time, and everyone's cranky about the lack of news... except for Charles, who has received a week's worth from home. BJ and Hawkeye start literally grabbing the papers, which are Charles's personal property and clearly of value to him, without so much as a token "may I?"; this is improper behavior no matter HOW eager they are for news, since they're not his friends and therefore do NOT have implied permission to handle his things, but that's never mentioned. Charles nevertheless agrees to let them have the papers once he's done reading them, which he's under no obligation to do, doubly so since they haven't ever done a thing for HIM except torture him; their attitude towards his generosity is anything but grateful, but that's not pointed out, and he doesn't rescind his offer because of their ingratitude, although he could have reasonably done so.
Later that day, Charles spots the PRIEST, of all the shameful things, sitting outside his tent reading HIS paper, having, as he cheerfully admitted, seen it on Charles's bed and felt free to help himself, airily proclaiming that he was sure Charles wouldn't mind... despite the fact that he and Charles don't get along, that it's stealing, not to mention trespassing, and it's pretty darned stupid for him to be out in public view with something that should fully be expected to cause a mob scene once word of its existence gets around. Charles, who's far brighter than Father Mulcahey and instantly sees the problem with the paper being visible outdoors, quickly agrees to let the priest read it (rather than declining to reward the improper behavior, as he certainly would have been justified in doing), and tries to hustle him into the tent to have some tea with his stolen newspaper before anyone sees... and then Margaret shows up and blares out that she's seen the paper, thus causing the gathering of a frenzied crowd that anyone with a brain would have foreseen and NOT instigated. Now, Charles is peer-pressured by their presence into agreeing to let the entire belligerent bunch have access to the paper, and the others he has, even though in repayment for their aggressiveness, contrary to the sweetness and light they SHOULD have been showing someone with something they wanted, especially someone they've consistently mistreated, he could very rightly have denied access... and again, the attitude of the unworthy recipients is far from grateful, but no one points that out, and Charles takes no new action because of it.
Not one person says, at that point or any other, that acting as if they have a right to someone else's property, especially someone none of them would so much as give the time of day to, is unreasonable... but they WOULD have said that if someone they LIKED had the papers and folks were making irrational demands or otherwise ganging up. There's never any hint that everyone's attitude towards Charles is disgraceful, and that includes the priest and the colonel, both of whom SHOULD have been busily dispersing the crowd and reminding them that they'd catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and one at a time rather than this gang bang, and that Charles would be perfectly within his rights to not share his papers in reaction to their behavior, or for any other reason.
Charles, with most of his pleasure in his own damned newspapers (which anyone else could have asked to be sent to THEM from home if they had any sense, and thus avoided the problem altogether) destroyed, finally gets to read the 1st one; when he goes for the 2nd one, it's GONE. Enraged at this newest slap in the face, he makes an infuriated announcement that he's not going to share ANY of his papers until the stolen one is returned; as usual, he rants on in his unwelcome-ly eloquent way about the camp and its residents, and given the circumstances he was perfectly entitled to do so. The response of everyone in the camp to him being robbed and reacting with the same level of anger any of THEM would have shown is to treat him like a leper; not one person expresses outrage at the theft, even though THEY can't read the missing paper either, and if only for those selfish reasons should have been raging against the thief and tearing the camp apart to find the missing paper... but no, they'd rather play a series of nasty pranks on Charles, including stealing the rest of his papers, than make any effort to get back the paper that they'd been so frenzied to have access to a short time before. They were universally more interested in biting the hand that had agreed to feed them than in taking action with any justice, or even any SENSE; again, none of the people that would usually be expected to point out when folks were acting so contrary to their best interests spoke up, because they were PART of the "all of us against Charles" mentality... and this is true to life, as authority figures will rarely if ever side with the one against the many.
In a clever plot twist, they have Colonel Potter mysteriously get HIS hands on one of Charles's papers, one with a story about how a strike had prevented papers from being delivered on the day corresponding to the missing paper, thus showing that the paper that NO ONE questioned had been stolen had in fact NOT been stolen; the proper thing for Potter to do at that point would have been to make one of his grandfatherly announcements pointing out that if they hadn't all descended on Charles like a pack of hyenas, hadn't neglected to offer to search for the missing paper, and hadn't in general always made clear to Charles that he was unwanted, none of this would have happened... and therefore that he'd made the executive decision that ONLY Charles would get to read his own papers, that they'd be kept locked in his office to prevent people from being tempted to help themselves any further, and that anyone causing additional problems in this area would be peeling potatoes for the rest of the war.
That's what SHOULD have happened; what actually happened is that Charles was forced to apologize for assuming WHAT EVERYONE ELSE HAD, that the paper had been stolen, and then Potter started reading Charles's comic section to the camp, while Charles stood there helplessly in the short red kimono that was the only garment he had left (which had contributed to him, the most senior officer in the camp after the colonel, being made sport of to add insult to his many injuries), utterly destroyed for the "crime" of having been smart enough to ask that newspapers be sent to him from home.
I find no humor in this whatsoever.
No, I'm not ignoring the fact that Charles is arrogantly sure of his superiority, contemptuous of everyone else, and unwilling to alter himself to blend in, or that it's natural for the others to not like him, I just want to point out that none of those things should mean that it's ok to take his stuff, or force him to share it with people he knows despise him, or for people's misbehavior where he's concerned to be seen as acceptable because he's the victim. It's one thing for he and various others to have equal exchanges of words against each other, but this bit of it being ok to treat a disliked person any old way, which is a common theme in TV shows and movies, is a whole other issue.
And no, I'm not ignoring the fact that in the setting of a M*A*S*H unit everyone has the unspoken expectation that anyone getting goodies of any sort, edible or otherwise, will share with as many people as possible, but Charles is an outsider to their little society, and, since he's denied the benefits of that society, he shouldn't be expected to contribute anything to the people of that the society in any way other than what his duties require, much less accept being abused when he DOES contribute.
What horrifies me about this episode, and the many other programs and films that show a similar dynamic, isn't that it departs from human nature, but that it does NOT depart from human nature; the writers fully expected everyone watching to see Charles as totally in the wrong, and the actual wrongdoers as somehow blameless, because Charles is the 1 and they are the many... and the 1 can rarely expect any shred of sympathy, support, or fairness. I'm betting that, if I'm not the only person ever to see that he was transgressed against many times, I'm one of very few; I'm probably also one of few at best who see that Charles should be viewed with a great deal of sympathy overall, because he's been put in a situation with no one of his class or background to have comradeship with, and the misery of being in a war zone is compounded for him by his aloneness even at times when he's not being actively targeted for abuse.
Just once, just ONCE, I'd like to see the misbehaving many get their butts kicked, and the victim triumph, in a TV show or movie OTHER than one in which the plot is that the many are evil and hateworthy and the victim is a hero (as in the classic "nice poor kid at a school with snotty rich kids" plot)... but I'm not holding my breath.
Charles is a product of his background, as nearly all of us are; he's from a wealthy, privileged family, has no experience dealing with "common people," and doesn't want to gain any... and the others in the camp, for their part, never show any desire to try to understand, accept, or befriend HIM. He looks down on them, they turn their noses up at him; it's unfortunate, but probably unavoidable, that things would be that way, and at least it's even-neither side is shedding any tears over the lack of love from the other.
In this episode, the newspapers haven't been delivered for some time, and everyone's cranky about the lack of news... except for Charles, who has received a week's worth from home. BJ and Hawkeye start literally grabbing the papers, which are Charles's personal property and clearly of value to him, without so much as a token "may I?"; this is improper behavior no matter HOW eager they are for news, since they're not his friends and therefore do NOT have implied permission to handle his things, but that's never mentioned. Charles nevertheless agrees to let them have the papers once he's done reading them, which he's under no obligation to do, doubly so since they haven't ever done a thing for HIM except torture him; their attitude towards his generosity is anything but grateful, but that's not pointed out, and he doesn't rescind his offer because of their ingratitude, although he could have reasonably done so.
Later that day, Charles spots the PRIEST, of all the shameful things, sitting outside his tent reading HIS paper, having, as he cheerfully admitted, seen it on Charles's bed and felt free to help himself, airily proclaiming that he was sure Charles wouldn't mind... despite the fact that he and Charles don't get along, that it's stealing, not to mention trespassing, and it's pretty darned stupid for him to be out in public view with something that should fully be expected to cause a mob scene once word of its existence gets around. Charles, who's far brighter than Father Mulcahey and instantly sees the problem with the paper being visible outdoors, quickly agrees to let the priest read it (rather than declining to reward the improper behavior, as he certainly would have been justified in doing), and tries to hustle him into the tent to have some tea with his stolen newspaper before anyone sees... and then Margaret shows up and blares out that she's seen the paper, thus causing the gathering of a frenzied crowd that anyone with a brain would have foreseen and NOT instigated. Now, Charles is peer-pressured by their presence into agreeing to let the entire belligerent bunch have access to the paper, and the others he has, even though in repayment for their aggressiveness, contrary to the sweetness and light they SHOULD have been showing someone with something they wanted, especially someone they've consistently mistreated, he could very rightly have denied access... and again, the attitude of the unworthy recipients is far from grateful, but no one points that out, and Charles takes no new action because of it.
Not one person says, at that point or any other, that acting as if they have a right to someone else's property, especially someone none of them would so much as give the time of day to, is unreasonable... but they WOULD have said that if someone they LIKED had the papers and folks were making irrational demands or otherwise ganging up. There's never any hint that everyone's attitude towards Charles is disgraceful, and that includes the priest and the colonel, both of whom SHOULD have been busily dispersing the crowd and reminding them that they'd catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and one at a time rather than this gang bang, and that Charles would be perfectly within his rights to not share his papers in reaction to their behavior, or for any other reason.
Charles, with most of his pleasure in his own damned newspapers (which anyone else could have asked to be sent to THEM from home if they had any sense, and thus avoided the problem altogether) destroyed, finally gets to read the 1st one; when he goes for the 2nd one, it's GONE. Enraged at this newest slap in the face, he makes an infuriated announcement that he's not going to share ANY of his papers until the stolen one is returned; as usual, he rants on in his unwelcome-ly eloquent way about the camp and its residents, and given the circumstances he was perfectly entitled to do so. The response of everyone in the camp to him being robbed and reacting with the same level of anger any of THEM would have shown is to treat him like a leper; not one person expresses outrage at the theft, even though THEY can't read the missing paper either, and if only for those selfish reasons should have been raging against the thief and tearing the camp apart to find the missing paper... but no, they'd rather play a series of nasty pranks on Charles, including stealing the rest of his papers, than make any effort to get back the paper that they'd been so frenzied to have access to a short time before. They were universally more interested in biting the hand that had agreed to feed them than in taking action with any justice, or even any SENSE; again, none of the people that would usually be expected to point out when folks were acting so contrary to their best interests spoke up, because they were PART of the "all of us against Charles" mentality... and this is true to life, as authority figures will rarely if ever side with the one against the many.
In a clever plot twist, they have Colonel Potter mysteriously get HIS hands on one of Charles's papers, one with a story about how a strike had prevented papers from being delivered on the day corresponding to the missing paper, thus showing that the paper that NO ONE questioned had been stolen had in fact NOT been stolen; the proper thing for Potter to do at that point would have been to make one of his grandfatherly announcements pointing out that if they hadn't all descended on Charles like a pack of hyenas, hadn't neglected to offer to search for the missing paper, and hadn't in general always made clear to Charles that he was unwanted, none of this would have happened... and therefore that he'd made the executive decision that ONLY Charles would get to read his own papers, that they'd be kept locked in his office to prevent people from being tempted to help themselves any further, and that anyone causing additional problems in this area would be peeling potatoes for the rest of the war.
That's what SHOULD have happened; what actually happened is that Charles was forced to apologize for assuming WHAT EVERYONE ELSE HAD, that the paper had been stolen, and then Potter started reading Charles's comic section to the camp, while Charles stood there helplessly in the short red kimono that was the only garment he had left (which had contributed to him, the most senior officer in the camp after the colonel, being made sport of to add insult to his many injuries), utterly destroyed for the "crime" of having been smart enough to ask that newspapers be sent to him from home.
I find no humor in this whatsoever.
No, I'm not ignoring the fact that Charles is arrogantly sure of his superiority, contemptuous of everyone else, and unwilling to alter himself to blend in, or that it's natural for the others to not like him, I just want to point out that none of those things should mean that it's ok to take his stuff, or force him to share it with people he knows despise him, or for people's misbehavior where he's concerned to be seen as acceptable because he's the victim. It's one thing for he and various others to have equal exchanges of words against each other, but this bit of it being ok to treat a disliked person any old way, which is a common theme in TV shows and movies, is a whole other issue.
And no, I'm not ignoring the fact that in the setting of a M*A*S*H unit everyone has the unspoken expectation that anyone getting goodies of any sort, edible or otherwise, will share with as many people as possible, but Charles is an outsider to their little society, and, since he's denied the benefits of that society, he shouldn't be expected to contribute anything to the people of that the society in any way other than what his duties require, much less accept being abused when he DOES contribute.
What horrifies me about this episode, and the many other programs and films that show a similar dynamic, isn't that it departs from human nature, but that it does NOT depart from human nature; the writers fully expected everyone watching to see Charles as totally in the wrong, and the actual wrongdoers as somehow blameless, because Charles is the 1 and they are the many... and the 1 can rarely expect any shred of sympathy, support, or fairness. I'm betting that, if I'm not the only person ever to see that he was transgressed against many times, I'm one of very few; I'm probably also one of few at best who see that Charles should be viewed with a great deal of sympathy overall, because he's been put in a situation with no one of his class or background to have comradeship with, and the misery of being in a war zone is compounded for him by his aloneness even at times when he's not being actively targeted for abuse.
Just once, just ONCE, I'd like to see the misbehaving many get their butts kicked, and the victim triumph, in a TV show or movie OTHER than one in which the plot is that the many are evil and hateworthy and the victim is a hero (as in the classic "nice poor kid at a school with snotty rich kids" plot)... but I'm not holding my breath.
Friday, August 12, 2005
"I'm so confused"
The above quote is code for, "I understand exactly what's going on, and know exactly what the right/smart/mature/SANE thing is to do, but I don't want to do it because it'd require me to make too much effort/give something up/admit I've been an idiot/stop clutching onto the worthless jerk I'm still inexplicably romantically involved with."
If you're dealing with an evil person, whether it's your boss, friend or romantic partner, it CAN be confusing to try to figure out why they act the way they do, because evil follows its own rules... but it's NOT confusing to figure out what YOU need to do. I'm not talking about times where a desperate financial situation is involved and the choice is between impoverishment and taking an emotional beating (and there's no confusion THERE, either, just the struggle to decide which is the lesser evil), I'm talking about when a person can get another job, another friend or another romantic partner without ending up having to live in a cardboard box as a result, but continues to suffer on and on because they want a magic wand to show up on their doorstep that they can use to make the evil person behave like a human being so that they don't have to change anything.
What possesses people to do this? Why are so many so eager to hang onto a job that's a nightmare, a "friend" who's clearly anything but, or a romantic partner that treats them like dirt? Why do they have to play the "confused" game to try to legitimize their refusal to take the necessary action? Why do they keep doing a mental and emotional contortion act to make it possible to stay with the terrible person/situation instead of running screaming for the horizon? Is it REALLY so important to them to not admit what poor judgment they showed in insisting that the job was their dream job, the friend was a true friend, and the romantic partner was their "soulmate" that they'll do anything other than admit they made the wrong choice and walk away?
Do you know someone who's "confused"? I know it's hard, but try to straighten them out:
Them: Yeah, he cheats on me, beats me up, steals my $, deals drugs in my living room in front of my kids, but... oh, I'm so confused!!
You: Which means "I'm so screwed up emotionally that I'm obsessed with this psycho and can't bear to give him up, and can't accept that he's never going to improve," right?
Them: NO, it means I LOVE him.
You: I rest my case.
Them: You're supposed to be my friend-why aren't you being supportive?
You: Because your definition of supportive where that cockroach is concerned is to agree that love means you have to endure whatever treatment he dishes out, and because I care about you I'm NOT going to say that. There's no cause for confusion here; it doesn't matter how you feel about him, he's evil and you need to kick him to the curb.
Them: I know, you're right, but I still want to be with him, and... oh, I'm so confused!!
You: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Hey, I just said to TRY, I didn't say it'd work the 1st time, or even the 101st time; if you care about someone, though, you've gotta keep at it and hope it works BEFORE disaster strikes.
If YOU are the one who's confused... no, you're NOT. No, really, you're NOT. Yes, it's a bummer that our affection for a job, person, whatever, doesn't vanish once we see that we've made a dreadful choice, but once we DO see it, we know exactly what to do; run, don't walk.
If you're dealing with an evil person, whether it's your boss, friend or romantic partner, it CAN be confusing to try to figure out why they act the way they do, because evil follows its own rules... but it's NOT confusing to figure out what YOU need to do. I'm not talking about times where a desperate financial situation is involved and the choice is between impoverishment and taking an emotional beating (and there's no confusion THERE, either, just the struggle to decide which is the lesser evil), I'm talking about when a person can get another job, another friend or another romantic partner without ending up having to live in a cardboard box as a result, but continues to suffer on and on because they want a magic wand to show up on their doorstep that they can use to make the evil person behave like a human being so that they don't have to change anything.
What possesses people to do this? Why are so many so eager to hang onto a job that's a nightmare, a "friend" who's clearly anything but, or a romantic partner that treats them like dirt? Why do they have to play the "confused" game to try to legitimize their refusal to take the necessary action? Why do they keep doing a mental and emotional contortion act to make it possible to stay with the terrible person/situation instead of running screaming for the horizon? Is it REALLY so important to them to not admit what poor judgment they showed in insisting that the job was their dream job, the friend was a true friend, and the romantic partner was their "soulmate" that they'll do anything other than admit they made the wrong choice and walk away?
Do you know someone who's "confused"? I know it's hard, but try to straighten them out:
Them: Yeah, he cheats on me, beats me up, steals my $, deals drugs in my living room in front of my kids, but... oh, I'm so confused!!
You: Which means "I'm so screwed up emotionally that I'm obsessed with this psycho and can't bear to give him up, and can't accept that he's never going to improve," right?
Them: NO, it means I LOVE him.
You: I rest my case.
Them: You're supposed to be my friend-why aren't you being supportive?
You: Because your definition of supportive where that cockroach is concerned is to agree that love means you have to endure whatever treatment he dishes out, and because I care about you I'm NOT going to say that. There's no cause for confusion here; it doesn't matter how you feel about him, he's evil and you need to kick him to the curb.
Them: I know, you're right, but I still want to be with him, and... oh, I'm so confused!!
You: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Hey, I just said to TRY, I didn't say it'd work the 1st time, or even the 101st time; if you care about someone, though, you've gotta keep at it and hope it works BEFORE disaster strikes.
If YOU are the one who's confused... no, you're NOT. No, really, you're NOT. Yes, it's a bummer that our affection for a job, person, whatever, doesn't vanish once we see that we've made a dreadful choice, but once we DO see it, we know exactly what to do; run, don't walk.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Hitchcock would've loved this
I posted on 6-9-05 that a bunch of rats had started hanging around on my patio at night, climbing the surrounding foliage, and drinking from the birdbaths; our attempts to trap them have been mostly unsuccessful, although at one point we got several little ones that were probably from the same litter. We thought things were bad THEN... but that's nothing to what we've got NOW.
Currently, you can look out at the landscaping around the patio and see it SEETHING with gigantic rats... I'm talking 30-40 at a time, and that's just the visible ones. They're running up and down every bush, they're streaming from side to side along a fairly horizontal pathway of branches, they're shimmying up and down the stakes the bushes are propped up with, they're leaping across to the pedestal birdbath and back into the bushes, they're running along the ground from one trunk to another, they're literally climbing the walls of the house (I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself)... it puts every horror movie scene with rampaging rats ever filmed look tame.
That's not even the worst of it; last night, I went out at a time when I didn't see any rats to put down some grapes for our latest nocturnal visitor, a small possum, and when I was near our storage shed I heard a chorus of high-pitched squeals that froze the blood in my veins, followed by scratching and scrabbling indicative of a # of rodential residents that defies belief, and then... thumping and banging as if the storage boxes within were being... thrown around. I know you think I'm being melodramatic, but I'm NOT; this is an accurate description, and I'm at an absolute loss as to how comparatively small creatures like even the biggest rats that ever lived objectively are could possibly be making that racket... I can imagine a large and agitated DOG possibly banging around like that, but my mind blanks out when I try to visualize what those rats are doing in there to make that sort of noise.
My husband, who's a big man and usually fearless about vermin, looked in there this morning, and refused to say anything other than, "It's over-run"; when I tried to question him further, he just shook his head. He was supposed to have brought poisoned baits home after work to put in there, but he bungled as usual; when I tried to make him go to Home Depot after dinner and get them, he said there was no point in him doing so, because under no circumstances will he open that shed door after dark.
I went out again tonight to put out fruit, and I heard the same blood-curdling noises in the shed; if this were an actual horror movie, we'd be about to discover that those rats came from the nuclear power plant, or were genetically modified to fight in wars, or some such thing... I don't know what the reality is, and I'm not sure if I could sleep if I did.
You know how, in any "attack of swarms of vermin" movie, there's usually a moment towards the end of the timeframe that they're still running away from humans when they're in fact running away, and one of them, perhaps the leader or just one at random making a gesture, will stop and look fearlessly at the people? With some prompting, I found out that that exact thing happened today when my husband opened the shed door; it gave him major creeps.
There's a limit as to how closely this will continue to resemble a horror movie plot, as I will NOT be going out there into the darkness barefooted and in my underwear to check things out; hopefully, when my husband buys and sets out the poisoned baits tomorrow, that'll bring a swift end to the situation... of course, we thought the same thing about the traps, which the rats have laughed endlessly about, but hope springs eternal. While we're waiting for the baits to get eaten, we'll remind each other that, if this were a movie, the rats would be out there scheming about how to get into the house and get US... but of course nothing like that could ever happen in real life.
Could it?
Currently, you can look out at the landscaping around the patio and see it SEETHING with gigantic rats... I'm talking 30-40 at a time, and that's just the visible ones. They're running up and down every bush, they're streaming from side to side along a fairly horizontal pathway of branches, they're shimmying up and down the stakes the bushes are propped up with, they're leaping across to the pedestal birdbath and back into the bushes, they're running along the ground from one trunk to another, they're literally climbing the walls of the house (I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself)... it puts every horror movie scene with rampaging rats ever filmed look tame.
That's not even the worst of it; last night, I went out at a time when I didn't see any rats to put down some grapes for our latest nocturnal visitor, a small possum, and when I was near our storage shed I heard a chorus of high-pitched squeals that froze the blood in my veins, followed by scratching and scrabbling indicative of a # of rodential residents that defies belief, and then... thumping and banging as if the storage boxes within were being... thrown around. I know you think I'm being melodramatic, but I'm NOT; this is an accurate description, and I'm at an absolute loss as to how comparatively small creatures like even the biggest rats that ever lived objectively are could possibly be making that racket... I can imagine a large and agitated DOG possibly banging around like that, but my mind blanks out when I try to visualize what those rats are doing in there to make that sort of noise.
My husband, who's a big man and usually fearless about vermin, looked in there this morning, and refused to say anything other than, "It's over-run"; when I tried to question him further, he just shook his head. He was supposed to have brought poisoned baits home after work to put in there, but he bungled as usual; when I tried to make him go to Home Depot after dinner and get them, he said there was no point in him doing so, because under no circumstances will he open that shed door after dark.
I went out again tonight to put out fruit, and I heard the same blood-curdling noises in the shed; if this were an actual horror movie, we'd be about to discover that those rats came from the nuclear power plant, or were genetically modified to fight in wars, or some such thing... I don't know what the reality is, and I'm not sure if I could sleep if I did.
You know how, in any "attack of swarms of vermin" movie, there's usually a moment towards the end of the timeframe that they're still running away from humans when they're in fact running away, and one of them, perhaps the leader or just one at random making a gesture, will stop and look fearlessly at the people? With some prompting, I found out that that exact thing happened today when my husband opened the shed door; it gave him major creeps.
There's a limit as to how closely this will continue to resemble a horror movie plot, as I will NOT be going out there into the darkness barefooted and in my underwear to check things out; hopefully, when my husband buys and sets out the poisoned baits tomorrow, that'll bring a swift end to the situation... of course, we thought the same thing about the traps, which the rats have laughed endlessly about, but hope springs eternal. While we're waiting for the baits to get eaten, we'll remind each other that, if this were a movie, the rats would be out there scheming about how to get into the house and get US... but of course nothing like that could ever happen in real life.
Could it?
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Astrology
Every study done, every poll taken, shows that Americans overwhelmingly believe in a deity (primarily God); why then...
... does every newspaper have horoscopes?
... do so many magazines have horoscopes?
... does every person you encounter know what their astrological sign is?
... do so many people have some degree of knowledge about things like what a cusp is, what it "means" to have a certain sign, etc?
... is it so common to see t-shirts, mugs, keyrings and such with the images associated with the astrological signs on them?
I can see some people with no established religious beliefs, but the desire to know and understand the workings of the universe, gravitating towards astrology in the same way they grab onto all sorts of other "mystical" things, but why would people who HAVE religious beliefs get sucked into something that has no logical basis to it? More importantly, how can anyone with religious beliefs justify also believing in astrology, which is NOT a part of any major religion?
If you're a long-time reader, you know that I bend over backwards to try to see any bit of truth in every system of belief, but the idea that everyone born in a given month, or even a day or an hour, will all have the same personality type is grossly, provably WRONG; to use an extreme example, twins, usually born minutes apart, at the exact same physical location (some insist that location matters), not to mention out of the same womb, always have VERY different personalities, and if that's not absolute proof I don't know what is.
The descriptions of the alleged attributes of the various signs are always written so that nearly anyone can read any of them and say, "Hey, that's me"... and that's not an accident of course. What never fails to amaze me is how people will point to characteristics that don't remotely describe them and claim that they apply, such as the stupid person who thinks they're intelligent, the weak person who sees themselves as brave and strong, etc; I had one incident with a close friend many years ago when she read a series of the qualities that supposedly apply to her sign, saying after each one, "And I'm that way"... until I finally lost it, howled with laughter, and told her bluntly that NONE of those things applied even slightly to her, that in fact she was the total opposite of all of those things. She denied it, and I hammered her with specific examples until she announced that she believed and that was that; we never discussed it again, lol.
Astrology goes back at least 3000 years, and I can see why, to primitive people of those older times, the various heavenly bodies must have seemed powerful and magical, leading to the "logical" conclusion that they were influencing events on Earth... but why, when we've known for ages that planets are just rocks, ice, dust and gasses, is anyone STILL believing this way, and why is our culture permeated with astrological ideas? What an odd, stubborn species we are...
... does every newspaper have horoscopes?
... do so many magazines have horoscopes?
... does every person you encounter know what their astrological sign is?
... do so many people have some degree of knowledge about things like what a cusp is, what it "means" to have a certain sign, etc?
... is it so common to see t-shirts, mugs, keyrings and such with the images associated with the astrological signs on them?
I can see some people with no established religious beliefs, but the desire to know and understand the workings of the universe, gravitating towards astrology in the same way they grab onto all sorts of other "mystical" things, but why would people who HAVE religious beliefs get sucked into something that has no logical basis to it? More importantly, how can anyone with religious beliefs justify also believing in astrology, which is NOT a part of any major religion?
If you're a long-time reader, you know that I bend over backwards to try to see any bit of truth in every system of belief, but the idea that everyone born in a given month, or even a day or an hour, will all have the same personality type is grossly, provably WRONG; to use an extreme example, twins, usually born minutes apart, at the exact same physical location (some insist that location matters), not to mention out of the same womb, always have VERY different personalities, and if that's not absolute proof I don't know what is.
The descriptions of the alleged attributes of the various signs are always written so that nearly anyone can read any of them and say, "Hey, that's me"... and that's not an accident of course. What never fails to amaze me is how people will point to characteristics that don't remotely describe them and claim that they apply, such as the stupid person who thinks they're intelligent, the weak person who sees themselves as brave and strong, etc; I had one incident with a close friend many years ago when she read a series of the qualities that supposedly apply to her sign, saying after each one, "And I'm that way"... until I finally lost it, howled with laughter, and told her bluntly that NONE of those things applied even slightly to her, that in fact she was the total opposite of all of those things. She denied it, and I hammered her with specific examples until she announced that she believed and that was that; we never discussed it again, lol.
Astrology goes back at least 3000 years, and I can see why, to primitive people of those older times, the various heavenly bodies must have seemed powerful and magical, leading to the "logical" conclusion that they were influencing events on Earth... but why, when we've known for ages that planets are just rocks, ice, dust and gasses, is anyone STILL believing this way, and why is our culture permeated with astrological ideas? What an odd, stubborn species we are...
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
How intelligent people are treated on forums
Karma REALLY wants me to understand the "intelligent vs average" conflict; I stumbled onto a forum today that contains a classic example of how the average routinely treat the intelligent online. As before, I've made the decision to NOT identify the forum, because I don't want anyone going there and causing problems, or them coming HERE and freaking out that I've quoted them; my desire is to learn from them, not cause them grief.
This forum looks to be another of the many consisting of almost all males, all under 25, and with average intelligence (coupled with below-average spelling and grammar) being the rule. A thread about karma on that forum started like this:
"the other day I found a 20 dollar bill outside of the library with noone around and my sister is like Karma will get you or just some s**t about Karma and that taking the bill is BAD"
which was followed by a slew of posts discussing the possible existence of karma. One post stood WAY out, however:
"Karma basically centers around 'you reap what you sow.'
It's not about philosophical proofs and moral absolutism. It's about living pragmatically, which is what Buddhism set out to do. According to scriptures like the Dhammapada, though, Karma is a consistent ongoing cyclical process, that lasts from lifetime to lifetime. Sometimes the weight of your actions will not affect you until reincarnation occurs several times over.
In all, the ideas of Karma state that if you can live a good life, practice right conduct, right speech, etc., then it will come back to you. So many people will be under the notion that they lead 'good lives,' but then a misfortune will befall them, and then Karma goes out the window, because a bad thing happened to a good person. But throughout one's life, they do things that cause suffering, and they might think that they rectified it by acting better. But it will invariably come back, and working through it and not losing one's will is what Karma is all about."
As soon as I saw this, clearly written by someone with a significant # of IQ points over the other posters, not to mention more overall knowledge (which isn't the same as intelligence, but is usually subject to the same prejudice), all the alarm bells went off in my head, because my years of being online have taught me that someone with any sort of brain power is virtually guaranteed to be a target on a forum. I soon saw that my instinct had been correct; as usual, there was someone who just couldn't STAND anyone talking over his head, and he came out with:
"Okay, Mr. Nihilist-Buddhist-a**clown."
You've gotta give the guy credit for originality, lol, but the point is that he threw out a personal insult and foul language totally out of left field, which is a standard opening volley from a belligerent type attacking someone more intelligent than themselves; they hope to upset, or at least rattle, the other person, making them not think as clearly and thus function at reduced capacity, and, ideally, to get the more intelligent person to engage in a personal battle with them rather than a debate, because belligerent types are MUCH more skilled at personal battles than regular folks, and have a high chance of winning. The ploy worked, as it all too often does (which is why they keep using it); the next posts consisted of several rounds of trading insults, eloquent and clever alternating with, er, not, until a moderator warned them to stop. I'll point out here that it's a BAD idea to use eloquence when dealing with turds like this, both because it works them up more and because it looks to others like you're "bragging" by using this non-standard format; our hero should've been blunt and dismissive instead... well, what he really should have done was realized that it was NOT to his benefit to get into a personal battle with that twit, but it takes quite a while for even the brightest person to grasp that intelligence rarely defeats belligerence online.
One of the lines from the turd to the hero shows a couple of interesting points:
"Damn, I wish I could show off how I drink with my geek friends."
The intelligent person needs to be VERY wary of anyone who labels them as such in an argument, whether with a term like "geek" (when used in the pejorative sense) or with phrases like "You think you're so smart," because ONLY a person who KNOWS they're outclassed brains-wise will do that, and they tend to feel the need to hammer the smarter person down so that they feel better about their lack of intellect.
The other revelatory thing from the turd was his indicating that the hero was "showing off"; yeah, he made it sound like it was in reference to some pic he'd seen of him partying with his buddies, but what he was actually trying to get across to the observers was the idea that the hero was (allegedly) showing off in that discussion... and, since people are quick to add 2 and 2 and get FIVE if you feed them an idea, this bit of "toss a negative term at someone and hope it sticks" all too often works. People of average intelligence are eager to embrace this particular label for a brainy person, not just because it gives them a way to criticize someone whose intelligence makes them uncomfortable, but because if they're a show-off, that somehow means they're NOT actually any brighter.
Our hero responded to the moderator with a few gracious lines indicating his willingness to stop the fight... and TWO new turds jumped into the fray:
"Oh god, just shut the f**k up already, we don't want any essays."
"[he] argues with everyone. I wish he would shut the f**k up."
Totally inappropriate... and totally typical, because once the attack on a smart person has begun, the turds are loathe to give it up.
In case you were wondering if perhaps the hero has a history of bad behavior that's the actual cause of the attacks on him (as it seems to be human nature to automatically assume that a victim must somehow be to blame, sigh), read this post, which is in response to that last post from a turd (the asterisks are mine):
"If you think so, keep it to yourself instead of telling everyone else how you have ***misunderstood*** him. He ***never argued*** with anyone, he ***just said his own opinion,*** which is the meaning of a forum. Respond to the matter itself, or counter him with a nice post telling him he is wrong to state what he thinks in a particular matter, instead of posting irrelevant, unneccessary s**t that strays miles from the actual thread."
Astounding; I can't tell you how rarely I've seen ANY sort of defense of an intelligent person in a forum, much less an extensive one like this. The hero obviously has had the same experience:
"...someone actually backing me? Shocking. Thanks"
Other posters pretty much managed to drag the thread back on topic after that, although a couple of people still saw fit to toss insults at the hero, which the moderator chose to ignore (as is usually the case), and the hero was wise enough to not reply to, nor did he participate in the thread any further, even when it got solidly back to intelligent discussion... to the loss of all those who were genuinely interested in the subject.
I read the entire thread (it was pretty long), and saw several important things:
1) Although MANY people were expressing opinions, on both sides of the debate, often punctuated with foul language and/or aggressive phrasing, ONLY the intelligent person was accused of "arguing."
2) Although other people agreed with what he was saying, ONLY he was attacked.
3) Although lots of the posts were quite long, longer in many cases than anything the hero wrote, ONLY he was accused of writing "essays."
4) Although every person in the discussion had folks who clearly disagreed with them, ONLY he was subjected to name-calling and personal insults.
5) And here's the most interesting one; NONE of the attackers argued with the defender, denied the validity of what he said, or tried to prove their case against the hero, which tells me that those little bastards knew perfectly well that what the defender said was true, and that there were no actual grounds for their attacks... they KNEW they were doing it because he's smarter and they dislike him for it, NOT because he's done anything intrinsically wrong.
The disinclination to argue with the defender demonstrates something I've seen countless times; turds know instinctively that to argue with even 1 additional person radically alters how the observers perceive what's going on. When someone attacks just one person, and especially when SEVERAL people attack one person, most observers will unfortunately make an immediate judgment, in direct contrast to what's actually going on (as noted above), that the VICTIM is somehow "bad," because the attacker(s) MUST have a valid reason for the attack (which in reality they almost never do); if they attack, or even argue with, an additional person, though, suddenly the observers start seeing them as being generally argumentative, doubting whether TWO people could be simultaneously deserving of bad treatment, and thinking that the attackers/arguers are possibly bullies lashing out for the fun of it... which they ARE, but people don't SEE that if there's only 1 victim, much to my everlasting disgust. I've seen extreme versions of this, when a person or group will rabidly attack someone who disagrees with them, totally ignoring the posts of the OTHERS who disagree with them, even if those people demand repeatedly that their remarks be addressed; how do they KNOW, is there a newsletter or guidebook for turds that tells them this stuff? The cruel other side of this is that, in cases where a group is attacking, if the victim tries to fight them all off he gets the "arguing with more than 1 person at a time means you're bad" thing going against him to add insult to his injury; I wonder, if the victim adopted a strategy of replying to only one attacker, would that make a useful degree of difference in how the fight played out, particularly with how the observers viewed it, and their willingness to intervene? hmmmmmmmmmmm
I'm frequently amazed that no one's written a book on "online psychology" yet, because there clearly IS such a thing, and it makes it easier to understand how people behave in real life when you watch folks act, and interact, without the restraints caused by having to look people in the eye and deal with their reactions to what they do... and yes, much of it sucks, but forewarned is forearmed.
This forum looks to be another of the many consisting of almost all males, all under 25, and with average intelligence (coupled with below-average spelling and grammar) being the rule. A thread about karma on that forum started like this:
"the other day I found a 20 dollar bill outside of the library with noone around and my sister is like Karma will get you or just some s**t about Karma and that taking the bill is BAD"
which was followed by a slew of posts discussing the possible existence of karma. One post stood WAY out, however:
"Karma basically centers around 'you reap what you sow.'
It's not about philosophical proofs and moral absolutism. It's about living pragmatically, which is what Buddhism set out to do. According to scriptures like the Dhammapada, though, Karma is a consistent ongoing cyclical process, that lasts from lifetime to lifetime. Sometimes the weight of your actions will not affect you until reincarnation occurs several times over.
In all, the ideas of Karma state that if you can live a good life, practice right conduct, right speech, etc., then it will come back to you. So many people will be under the notion that they lead 'good lives,' but then a misfortune will befall them, and then Karma goes out the window, because a bad thing happened to a good person. But throughout one's life, they do things that cause suffering, and they might think that they rectified it by acting better. But it will invariably come back, and working through it and not losing one's will is what Karma is all about."
As soon as I saw this, clearly written by someone with a significant # of IQ points over the other posters, not to mention more overall knowledge (which isn't the same as intelligence, but is usually subject to the same prejudice), all the alarm bells went off in my head, because my years of being online have taught me that someone with any sort of brain power is virtually guaranteed to be a target on a forum. I soon saw that my instinct had been correct; as usual, there was someone who just couldn't STAND anyone talking over his head, and he came out with:
"Okay, Mr. Nihilist-Buddhist-a**clown."
You've gotta give the guy credit for originality, lol, but the point is that he threw out a personal insult and foul language totally out of left field, which is a standard opening volley from a belligerent type attacking someone more intelligent than themselves; they hope to upset, or at least rattle, the other person, making them not think as clearly and thus function at reduced capacity, and, ideally, to get the more intelligent person to engage in a personal battle with them rather than a debate, because belligerent types are MUCH more skilled at personal battles than regular folks, and have a high chance of winning. The ploy worked, as it all too often does (which is why they keep using it); the next posts consisted of several rounds of trading insults, eloquent and clever alternating with, er, not, until a moderator warned them to stop. I'll point out here that it's a BAD idea to use eloquence when dealing with turds like this, both because it works them up more and because it looks to others like you're "bragging" by using this non-standard format; our hero should've been blunt and dismissive instead... well, what he really should have done was realized that it was NOT to his benefit to get into a personal battle with that twit, but it takes quite a while for even the brightest person to grasp that intelligence rarely defeats belligerence online.
One of the lines from the turd to the hero shows a couple of interesting points:
"Damn, I wish I could show off how I drink with my geek friends."
The intelligent person needs to be VERY wary of anyone who labels them as such in an argument, whether with a term like "geek" (when used in the pejorative sense) or with phrases like "You think you're so smart," because ONLY a person who KNOWS they're outclassed brains-wise will do that, and they tend to feel the need to hammer the smarter person down so that they feel better about their lack of intellect.
The other revelatory thing from the turd was his indicating that the hero was "showing off"; yeah, he made it sound like it was in reference to some pic he'd seen of him partying with his buddies, but what he was actually trying to get across to the observers was the idea that the hero was (allegedly) showing off in that discussion... and, since people are quick to add 2 and 2 and get FIVE if you feed them an idea, this bit of "toss a negative term at someone and hope it sticks" all too often works. People of average intelligence are eager to embrace this particular label for a brainy person, not just because it gives them a way to criticize someone whose intelligence makes them uncomfortable, but because if they're a show-off, that somehow means they're NOT actually any brighter.
Our hero responded to the moderator with a few gracious lines indicating his willingness to stop the fight... and TWO new turds jumped into the fray:
"Oh god, just shut the f**k up already, we don't want any essays."
"[he] argues with everyone. I wish he would shut the f**k up."
Totally inappropriate... and totally typical, because once the attack on a smart person has begun, the turds are loathe to give it up.
In case you were wondering if perhaps the hero has a history of bad behavior that's the actual cause of the attacks on him (as it seems to be human nature to automatically assume that a victim must somehow be to blame, sigh), read this post, which is in response to that last post from a turd (the asterisks are mine):
"If you think so, keep it to yourself instead of telling everyone else how you have ***misunderstood*** him. He ***never argued*** with anyone, he ***just said his own opinion,*** which is the meaning of a forum. Respond to the matter itself, or counter him with a nice post telling him he is wrong to state what he thinks in a particular matter, instead of posting irrelevant, unneccessary s**t that strays miles from the actual thread."
Astounding; I can't tell you how rarely I've seen ANY sort of defense of an intelligent person in a forum, much less an extensive one like this. The hero obviously has had the same experience:
"...someone actually backing me? Shocking. Thanks"
Other posters pretty much managed to drag the thread back on topic after that, although a couple of people still saw fit to toss insults at the hero, which the moderator chose to ignore (as is usually the case), and the hero was wise enough to not reply to, nor did he participate in the thread any further, even when it got solidly back to intelligent discussion... to the loss of all those who were genuinely interested in the subject.
I read the entire thread (it was pretty long), and saw several important things:
1) Although MANY people were expressing opinions, on both sides of the debate, often punctuated with foul language and/or aggressive phrasing, ONLY the intelligent person was accused of "arguing."
2) Although other people agreed with what he was saying, ONLY he was attacked.
3) Although lots of the posts were quite long, longer in many cases than anything the hero wrote, ONLY he was accused of writing "essays."
4) Although every person in the discussion had folks who clearly disagreed with them, ONLY he was subjected to name-calling and personal insults.
5) And here's the most interesting one; NONE of the attackers argued with the defender, denied the validity of what he said, or tried to prove their case against the hero, which tells me that those little bastards knew perfectly well that what the defender said was true, and that there were no actual grounds for their attacks... they KNEW they were doing it because he's smarter and they dislike him for it, NOT because he's done anything intrinsically wrong.
The disinclination to argue with the defender demonstrates something I've seen countless times; turds know instinctively that to argue with even 1 additional person radically alters how the observers perceive what's going on. When someone attacks just one person, and especially when SEVERAL people attack one person, most observers will unfortunately make an immediate judgment, in direct contrast to what's actually going on (as noted above), that the VICTIM is somehow "bad," because the attacker(s) MUST have a valid reason for the attack (which in reality they almost never do); if they attack, or even argue with, an additional person, though, suddenly the observers start seeing them as being generally argumentative, doubting whether TWO people could be simultaneously deserving of bad treatment, and thinking that the attackers/arguers are possibly bullies lashing out for the fun of it... which they ARE, but people don't SEE that if there's only 1 victim, much to my everlasting disgust. I've seen extreme versions of this, when a person or group will rabidly attack someone who disagrees with them, totally ignoring the posts of the OTHERS who disagree with them, even if those people demand repeatedly that their remarks be addressed; how do they KNOW, is there a newsletter or guidebook for turds that tells them this stuff? The cruel other side of this is that, in cases where a group is attacking, if the victim tries to fight them all off he gets the "arguing with more than 1 person at a time means you're bad" thing going against him to add insult to his injury; I wonder, if the victim adopted a strategy of replying to only one attacker, would that make a useful degree of difference in how the fight played out, particularly with how the observers viewed it, and their willingness to intervene? hmmmmmmmmmmm
I'm frequently amazed that no one's written a book on "online psychology" yet, because there clearly IS such a thing, and it makes it easier to understand how people behave in real life when you watch folks act, and interact, without the restraints caused by having to look people in the eye and deal with their reactions to what they do... and yes, much of it sucks, but forewarned is forearmed.
Monday, August 08, 2005
The sad end of "Queer as Folk"
And I don't just refer to my sorrow that they ended the series, I mean that the ending they came up with was NOT a fitting cap on 5 years of awesome episodes. It was supposed to be full of surprises, but it wasn't; there were a few minor ones, but that's it. It was supposed to keep us guessing until the last moment, but everything was rounded up with 15 minutes left to go, and then they just spun their wheels. Worst of all, most of the ways that subplots were finished off were pretty lame.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Here's how they ended it:
As predicted, Carl and Debbie, Michael and Ben, and Mel and Linz stayed paired up with no alterations, and the ladies moved to Canada.
Michael and Ben decided to adopt Hunter, which is a nice idea, but since his biological mother would NEVER sign the papers, they'd have a huge court battle that they'd be pretty much guaranteed to lose; I guess they were hoping that no one would think it out that far, and it IS nice to fantasize that they COULD adopt him, as they all love each other.
As I'd hoped, Ted DID kick out the worthless boyfriend, although they had the latter behave in an unbelievably psychotic way to make that happen, which spoiled it a little. Then, in the best moment of the episode, they had Teddy run into the former boyfriend that he still loved (and vice versa), Blake, who, despite his hotness, was miraculously single; because Ted's massively rebounding, he can't realistically enter into a relationship now, but it was so exciting to see the 2 of them go off together that when I was watching it happen I got caught up and VERY excited for Ted.
Sadly, the QAF writers decided that, if 1 surprise man was good, 2 must be better; they had some guy that Emmett went to high school with, and had had a crush on, show up at his side 10 seconds after Ted and Blake left, Emmett instantly revealed how he used to feel, and THEY went off together. It's not that I wasn't happy for Emmett, but to have him and Ted both get men with no warning, at the same time on the same spot, was just plain silly... like the endings of dopey teen movies when girls show up out of the blue to pair up with all the boys.
The Brian and Justin issue was the one with all the drama involved, and was handled heartbreakingly badly: Brian inexplicably continued his bewildering personality change, which if it had been later revealed that he'd done it to manipulate Justin into following his dreams in New York could have been fab, but instead just looked like the coolest character on the show losing all the personality traits that made him appealing. Justin, having gotten everything he wanted from Brian, was objecting to it too quickly and too passionately; he's bright enough to have figured out eventually that it was a bad thing, but human nature would be to wallow blissfully in it for a while. And why were they still in Brian's loft when the mansion was ready for them to move into it? There was no mention of the house at all, in fact, which is a little odd to say the least.
The biggie, of course, was the wedding; they decided that they didn't want to get married if it meant such big sacrifices, made a simple announcement that the wedding was off, and that was it... no one talked about it, there was no hint of either of them changing their minds, no plot twists, just this understated decision not to do it after all they'd been through together. They left it that they might see each other in a week, a month, or never again, and the passionate relationship ended (or mostly ended, we can't really tell) with Justin going, never to be heard from again in the episode. All the buildup to there being an intense and unpredictable plotline for them, and they made the totally predictable decision early on and didn't even PRETEND that anything might change.
I was so excited all day, I was choked up after watching the farewell show that preceded the final episode, I was bursting with eagerness as each scene unfolded... and when the last 15 minutes consisted of Brian and Michael talking, and then them in a miraculously revived Babylon that we don't know if Brian actually rebuilt or if it was a fantasy, and the final moments trickled away without Justin reappearing or Brian taking off to go to the airport and follow him to NYC, and I realized it was OVER, my disappointment knew no bounds.
I'm not going to let this spoil my pleasure in the series as a whole, however, which I'll be watching on DVD for probably the rest of my life, like a true fanatic, loving it every time; my final comment, then, will be a heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in the making of the 5 wonderful seasons of QAF, for their brilliance, courage, humor, creativity and humanity... oh, and the sex, let's not forget the hottest sex ever filmed for non-porn audiences, including a dazzling amount of total male nudity (hey, I'm married, but I'm not DEAD)... but most of all for creating characters that it was possible to care deeply about, so much so that the end of the series feels like friends moving far away, never to be seen again, rather than actors moving on to new things.
THANK YOU!! XOXOXOXOXOXO
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Here's how they ended it:
As predicted, Carl and Debbie, Michael and Ben, and Mel and Linz stayed paired up with no alterations, and the ladies moved to Canada.
Michael and Ben decided to adopt Hunter, which is a nice idea, but since his biological mother would NEVER sign the papers, they'd have a huge court battle that they'd be pretty much guaranteed to lose; I guess they were hoping that no one would think it out that far, and it IS nice to fantasize that they COULD adopt him, as they all love each other.
As I'd hoped, Ted DID kick out the worthless boyfriend, although they had the latter behave in an unbelievably psychotic way to make that happen, which spoiled it a little. Then, in the best moment of the episode, they had Teddy run into the former boyfriend that he still loved (and vice versa), Blake, who, despite his hotness, was miraculously single; because Ted's massively rebounding, he can't realistically enter into a relationship now, but it was so exciting to see the 2 of them go off together that when I was watching it happen I got caught up and VERY excited for Ted.
Sadly, the QAF writers decided that, if 1 surprise man was good, 2 must be better; they had some guy that Emmett went to high school with, and had had a crush on, show up at his side 10 seconds after Ted and Blake left, Emmett instantly revealed how he used to feel, and THEY went off together. It's not that I wasn't happy for Emmett, but to have him and Ted both get men with no warning, at the same time on the same spot, was just plain silly... like the endings of dopey teen movies when girls show up out of the blue to pair up with all the boys.
The Brian and Justin issue was the one with all the drama involved, and was handled heartbreakingly badly: Brian inexplicably continued his bewildering personality change, which if it had been later revealed that he'd done it to manipulate Justin into following his dreams in New York could have been fab, but instead just looked like the coolest character on the show losing all the personality traits that made him appealing. Justin, having gotten everything he wanted from Brian, was objecting to it too quickly and too passionately; he's bright enough to have figured out eventually that it was a bad thing, but human nature would be to wallow blissfully in it for a while. And why were they still in Brian's loft when the mansion was ready for them to move into it? There was no mention of the house at all, in fact, which is a little odd to say the least.
The biggie, of course, was the wedding; they decided that they didn't want to get married if it meant such big sacrifices, made a simple announcement that the wedding was off, and that was it... no one talked about it, there was no hint of either of them changing their minds, no plot twists, just this understated decision not to do it after all they'd been through together. They left it that they might see each other in a week, a month, or never again, and the passionate relationship ended (or mostly ended, we can't really tell) with Justin going, never to be heard from again in the episode. All the buildup to there being an intense and unpredictable plotline for them, and they made the totally predictable decision early on and didn't even PRETEND that anything might change.
I was so excited all day, I was choked up after watching the farewell show that preceded the final episode, I was bursting with eagerness as each scene unfolded... and when the last 15 minutes consisted of Brian and Michael talking, and then them in a miraculously revived Babylon that we don't know if Brian actually rebuilt or if it was a fantasy, and the final moments trickled away without Justin reappearing or Brian taking off to go to the airport and follow him to NYC, and I realized it was OVER, my disappointment knew no bounds.
I'm not going to let this spoil my pleasure in the series as a whole, however, which I'll be watching on DVD for probably the rest of my life, like a true fanatic, loving it every time; my final comment, then, will be a heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in the making of the 5 wonderful seasons of QAF, for their brilliance, courage, humor, creativity and humanity... oh, and the sex, let's not forget the hottest sex ever filmed for non-porn audiences, including a dazzling amount of total male nudity (hey, I'm married, but I'm not DEAD)... but most of all for creating characters that it was possible to care deeply about, so much so that the end of the series feels like friends moving far away, never to be seen again, rather than actors moving on to new things.
THANK YOU!! XOXOXOXOXOXO
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Fruit will be the death of me
If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm a supertaster (someone with a VERY intense perception of bitterness), which means that I hate nearly all foods, particularly healthy, low-calorie and -fat ones (which are unfortunately full of undisguised bitter compounds); most of the few foods of that sort that I CAN eat are kinds of fruit, and since I'm increasingly desperate to keep my weight steady (as my metabolism is slowing down a little each year despite all the exercising I do) fruit makes up a substantial portion of what little I eat... and I'm at the point where if I never see a piece of fruit again as long as I live, it'll be too soon.
It's not that fruit tastes bad to me now, exactly, it's just that I'm so sick of it that my stomach clenches every time I look at it... proof that your body does NOT always tell you what's right for you to eat, or else that my body is just stubbornly stupid and self-destructive. Making this worse is that I become significantly more prone to heartburn as I get older, which means that the acid fruits that I like the best, such as kiwi and pineapple, are usually a bad idea for me to eat (they've even started making my mouth burn, how's that for adding insult to injury?); this has reduced my choices, and forced me to rely heavily on fruits that I generally don't like as well.
But that's just the half of it; my friend MuckDog, whose excellent blog is here
http://thelearningcurve.blogspot.com/
posted a link last week to an article
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&e=4&u=/hsn/20050729/hl_hsn/fructosesweetenerspursobesity
that talks about a study
"In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks."
that led to a horrifying result:
"By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only."
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!! And it's NOT because they took in more calories due to having high-calorie beverages, either:
"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks"
They should NOT have been surprised, as animals tend to automatically consume the proper total # of calories, but... does anyone else get a sinking feeling from this revelation? Their conclusion:
"The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said."
is the LAST thing I ever wanted to hear about food, after I've been forcing myself to choke down fruit as part of my weight-control program year after year; it's just unbearable that the thing I was doing to prevent weight gain was in fact likely CAUSING it, making it necessary for me to eat less and less to compensate. :-(
The article makes a big issue of fructose being in some sodas, as part of what MuckDog rightly calls "a war on soda," and that's disingenuous of them, because the primary source of fructose is NOT soda, it's FRUIT (and that means fresh, dried and juice); that's why it's sometimes called "fruit sugar." I understand why they don't want to be scaring Americans away from fruit consumption, since we eat far too little produce as it is, but they really NEEDED to have pointed out the inescapable conclusion that, assuming that human studies will get similar results to the mouse studies, as they usually do, people like me who've been eating fruit as a way to eat fewer calories and less fat, and thus lose or maintain weight, need to re-think our diet plans.
sigh
I tried, as I always do with this sort of info, to figure out why our bodies might respond to fructose that way; my best guess is that, because fruit would NOT have been part of the regular diet of primitive humans (as it's not available most of the year in the absence of agriculture), it's perhaps not so astonishing that eating alot of it would cause an unusual reaction, and that since when fruit WOULD have been widely available would have been in the fall, when humans, like other animals, would be trying to fatten up for the lean times ahead when winter came, it'd make sense for the consumption of alot of fructose to trigger the body to go into "store fat for the winter" mode.
Regardless of how the mechanism works and why, I've clearly got to start substituting something else for fruit part of the time; I can eat a modest amount of plain rice or couscous, and, although they both have a high glycemic load (which means they shoot up blood sugar and can make you feel hungry even when you're full), and, despite the moronic increase in whole grains in the food pyramid, they're NOT meant to be more than a tiny part of the human diet (as even when they'd have been available they were labor-intensive to collect and consume), which makes me concerned that they're going to eventually discover something similar to the "fructose effect" that applies to them, I've GOT to eat something other than meat and cheese (and junk food), so I guess that's what I'm going to be stuck with.
At the risk of repeating myself; sigh.
Don't worry, I won't have long to brood about this; tomorrow is Sunday, and that means that the final episode of "Queer as Folk" is now just hours away... I'm going to be bouncing off the walls all day waiting for it, wondering if they've come up with a fitting way to end this wonderful series.
One final bit of news: I've re-done my sidebar, and if you check out the upper right you'll see a box for "Top 100 Bloggers," where I've signed up to be rated; if you enjoy your visits here, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd click the box every so often and cast a vote for me... it gives me a real boost to see that people care enough to take time to do that. :-)
It's not that fruit tastes bad to me now, exactly, it's just that I'm so sick of it that my stomach clenches every time I look at it... proof that your body does NOT always tell you what's right for you to eat, or else that my body is just stubbornly stupid and self-destructive. Making this worse is that I become significantly more prone to heartburn as I get older, which means that the acid fruits that I like the best, such as kiwi and pineapple, are usually a bad idea for me to eat (they've even started making my mouth burn, how's that for adding insult to injury?); this has reduced my choices, and forced me to rely heavily on fruits that I generally don't like as well.
But that's just the half of it; my friend MuckDog, whose excellent blog is here
http://thelearningcurve.blogspot.com/
posted a link last week to an article
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&e=4&u=/hsn/20050729/hl_hsn/fructosesweetenerspursobesity
that talks about a study
"In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks."
that led to a horrifying result:
"By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only."
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!! And it's NOT because they took in more calories due to having high-calorie beverages, either:
"We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn't consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks"
They should NOT have been surprised, as animals tend to automatically consume the proper total # of calories, but... does anyone else get a sinking feeling from this revelation? Their conclusion:
"The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said."
is the LAST thing I ever wanted to hear about food, after I've been forcing myself to choke down fruit as part of my weight-control program year after year; it's just unbearable that the thing I was doing to prevent weight gain was in fact likely CAUSING it, making it necessary for me to eat less and less to compensate. :-(
The article makes a big issue of fructose being in some sodas, as part of what MuckDog rightly calls "a war on soda," and that's disingenuous of them, because the primary source of fructose is NOT soda, it's FRUIT (and that means fresh, dried and juice); that's why it's sometimes called "fruit sugar." I understand why they don't want to be scaring Americans away from fruit consumption, since we eat far too little produce as it is, but they really NEEDED to have pointed out the inescapable conclusion that, assuming that human studies will get similar results to the mouse studies, as they usually do, people like me who've been eating fruit as a way to eat fewer calories and less fat, and thus lose or maintain weight, need to re-think our diet plans.
sigh
I tried, as I always do with this sort of info, to figure out why our bodies might respond to fructose that way; my best guess is that, because fruit would NOT have been part of the regular diet of primitive humans (as it's not available most of the year in the absence of agriculture), it's perhaps not so astonishing that eating alot of it would cause an unusual reaction, and that since when fruit WOULD have been widely available would have been in the fall, when humans, like other animals, would be trying to fatten up for the lean times ahead when winter came, it'd make sense for the consumption of alot of fructose to trigger the body to go into "store fat for the winter" mode.
Regardless of how the mechanism works and why, I've clearly got to start substituting something else for fruit part of the time; I can eat a modest amount of plain rice or couscous, and, although they both have a high glycemic load (which means they shoot up blood sugar and can make you feel hungry even when you're full), and, despite the moronic increase in whole grains in the food pyramid, they're NOT meant to be more than a tiny part of the human diet (as even when they'd have been available they were labor-intensive to collect and consume), which makes me concerned that they're going to eventually discover something similar to the "fructose effect" that applies to them, I've GOT to eat something other than meat and cheese (and junk food), so I guess that's what I'm going to be stuck with.
At the risk of repeating myself; sigh.
Don't worry, I won't have long to brood about this; tomorrow is Sunday, and that means that the final episode of "Queer as Folk" is now just hours away... I'm going to be bouncing off the walls all day waiting for it, wondering if they've come up with a fitting way to end this wonderful series.
One final bit of news: I've re-done my sidebar, and if you check out the upper right you'll see a box for "Top 100 Bloggers," where I've signed up to be rated; if you enjoy your visits here, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd click the box every so often and cast a vote for me... it gives me a real boost to see that people care enough to take time to do that. :-)
