Several years ago, I was out having dinner with a girl I had recently started dating. For the sake of privacy, we’ll call her Ophelia. Ophelia had misplaced her contacts, and this was the first time I had seen her wearing glasses. I asked her when she started wearing them. She was an incredibly candid person, shockingly so at times, so she didn’t hesitate to tell me a self-deprecating, albeit heartbreaking story that would resonate with anyone who has navigated the confounding passage of adolescence.
The year was 1986, and Ophelia was twelve. This particular year, it seems that eyeglasses had somehow managed to escape the oppression of previous fashion associations more closely connected with dorks, nerds, geeks, and dweebs, and rather had found refuge as an accessory in the cool kid camp. Now, Ophelia was not a geek or a dweeb, but nor was she in the upper echelon of popularity. She was in a social purgatory of sorts. The middle school middle class. For this reason she had hope, hope for a ride uptown to Popularville. Naturally she believed the sure ticket for a ride to Popularville lay in acquiring one pair of eyeglasses with frames of the most contemporary style.
Life has a funny way sometimes of setting up a perfect storm of events, which once unfolded, will forever change everything. The fact that Ophelia’s school scheduled the annual school wide eye exams only a week after she had begun having these obsessive thoughts of eyeglasses was a crystalline example of one of these perfect storms. Ophelia felt like the luckiest girl in the whole seventh grade. As she was precocious beyond measure, the idea came to her immediately. She just had to make sure not to overdo it.
The day of the eye exam came. When Ophelia positioned herself in front of the line exactly twenty feet from the chart hung on the wall, she cleared her throat, and began to recite letters on the chart. She recited the first three lines without flaw. Then once she reached the fourth line, she recited three letters that were not on the chart. At the fifth line, she incorrectly recited a different letter for every one she saw there. Three days later, she had her new pair of glasses.
At first, it was difficult for Ophelia to see when she was wearing her new prescription glasses. The prescription wasn’t that strong, but she had perfect 20/20 vision. However, after time she grew more accustomed to the glasses. Well, that’s what she thought anyway. What was really happening is that the glasses were ruining her eyes. The next year, she took another eye exam. She didn’t pass that time either. As a matter of fact, no matter how hard she tried she never passed again, because she had ruined her perfect eyes in the name of appearances.
Of course I’m not telling this story just because it’s an interesting perspective into the mind of an adolescent girl. I’m telling it to draw a parallel. Republican pundits are essentially doing the same thing Ophelia did. A trademark of the Republican Party has always been a position against public health care. It is an appearance that they have always maintained, and continue to do so today. Just as Ophelia lied to achieve the appearance she desired, so too are conservative leaders and pundits. They are lying about the fundamentals of the issue, and if they succeed as Ophelia did, the future of America will be worse off for it.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Letter to the President of the United States
I just learned from National Public Radio that the administration might be willing to abandon a government sponsored health care option. It is difficult to express the degree to which this news disappoints me. I belong to the younger generation of Americans who voted for you with the hope that you would lead an agenda of progressive changes to make a more fair and just country for all its citizens. The issue at the very forefront of that agenda is health care. You know this, but you are allowing moderate and conservative legislators who receive millions of dollars from the health care industry to have it their way, and not the way of the American citizens.
After eight years of George W. Bush's corrupt government working for the corporations instead of the American people, we did not expect more of the same when we elected you to take his place. The degree of apathy the younger generation will have for this administration, as well as a profound cynicism of the entire American government system should this crucial component of legislation not pass, has the potential to leave the majority of an entire generation despondent, and may forever change the political landscape of this country. It is not too late to demand a public option in health care reform.
I suggest you do the same thing here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
After eight years of George W. Bush's corrupt government working for the corporations instead of the American people, we did not expect more of the same when we elected you to take his place. The degree of apathy the younger generation will have for this administration, as well as a profound cynicism of the entire American government system should this crucial component of legislation not pass, has the potential to leave the majority of an entire generation despondent, and may forever change the political landscape of this country. It is not too late to demand a public option in health care reform.
I suggest you do the same thing here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Cycle of Stupid
I recently moved into a house again for the first time in many years. It seems for nearly a decade now, I've been living in apartments or townhouses or some other arrangement that left me without having the responsibility of lawn care. I've actually really enjoyed my return to mowing and trimming, and am puzzled by what made me despise it so much throughout my adolescence.
The owner of the house I am renting is a college professor, and recently moved to Canada to take a position there. He left all the tools necessary to tend to the lawn. It is worth noting that he is from Belarus, because that may have something to do with the types of tools he used, and which I also now use. The lawn mower is the only piece of the arsenal that has a motor. It is a simple push mower that is not self propelled. The hedge clippers and edger are manual devices. There is no leaf blower, there is a rake.
A week or so ago after pushing the lawnmower up and down the hill in the back yard, and while trimming the hedges with the massive steel scissors, I found myself unsure of which was burning more; the sweat dripping into my eyes, or my pectoral muscles under the command of the shears. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been getting quite a workout. It didn't take much longer to discover yet another example of how backwards our modern world has become.
Soon after the beginning of the industrial revolution, people started leaving the farms in the countryside. They came in droves to the urban centers to find work in factories. It wasn't just American farm boys who came, but immigrants too. A little more than a half a century later, and those factories began to shut their doors and leave this country just as fast as Irish families left theirs to come here after the potato blight a hundred years earlier. As factories expanded overseas, office cubicles multiplied here. In just over a hundred and fifty years, our work routines went from one characterized by long hours of physical exertion, to eight hours of remaining sedentary like barnacles. It wasn't long before people started dying of diseases previously unheard of. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes. We learned of something crucial that was missing in our new lives. We gave it a name. Exercise. Its absence was what made way for all these new diseases. Gyms sprang up like mushrooms in a meadow after a heavy rain.
The funny part is that a forty hour work week still leaves an awful lot of free time. While it does not leave nearly enough time to work a farm as a business, it certainly leaves enough to manage and grow enough food to significantly augment a family diet. But for some reason, growing one's own food took on the stigma that you were poor, and the modern lawn was born. The modern lawn still does have the potential to offer a healthy dose of exercise, only that there is really no reward to yield from the labor invested. Unfortunately, now the modern lawn doesn't even give back the reward of exercise. Technological advances have given us the riding lawnmower, the weed wacker, the electric hedge trimmer, the leaf blower, and the leaf vacuum.
This is where the backwards part comes in. We spend money on produce at the market because we plant grass and inedible bushes on the land around our homes. We spend money on devices that ensure we physically exert less energy to cut the grass and manicure the bushes. Then we spend money every month on a gym membership so that we may have a means to get the exercise we need to keep us healthy. Never mind for a moment that there are people in the world who, because they only have a thousand or so calories of food to eat daily, they get faint when they work more than four or five hours in the field. Never mind for a moment that while this is happening, we are burning off our excess thousand calorie intake on the equivalent of a human hamster wheel. For right now, just think about how much money we could save if we just stopped this cycle of stupid, and just planted a garden.
The owner of the house I am renting is a college professor, and recently moved to Canada to take a position there. He left all the tools necessary to tend to the lawn. It is worth noting that he is from Belarus, because that may have something to do with the types of tools he used, and which I also now use. The lawn mower is the only piece of the arsenal that has a motor. It is a simple push mower that is not self propelled. The hedge clippers and edger are manual devices. There is no leaf blower, there is a rake.
A week or so ago after pushing the lawnmower up and down the hill in the back yard, and while trimming the hedges with the massive steel scissors, I found myself unsure of which was burning more; the sweat dripping into my eyes, or my pectoral muscles under the command of the shears. It suddenly occurred to me that I had been getting quite a workout. It didn't take much longer to discover yet another example of how backwards our modern world has become.
Soon after the beginning of the industrial revolution, people started leaving the farms in the countryside. They came in droves to the urban centers to find work in factories. It wasn't just American farm boys who came, but immigrants too. A little more than a half a century later, and those factories began to shut their doors and leave this country just as fast as Irish families left theirs to come here after the potato blight a hundred years earlier. As factories expanded overseas, office cubicles multiplied here. In just over a hundred and fifty years, our work routines went from one characterized by long hours of physical exertion, to eight hours of remaining sedentary like barnacles. It wasn't long before people started dying of diseases previously unheard of. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes. We learned of something crucial that was missing in our new lives. We gave it a name. Exercise. Its absence was what made way for all these new diseases. Gyms sprang up like mushrooms in a meadow after a heavy rain.
The funny part is that a forty hour work week still leaves an awful lot of free time. While it does not leave nearly enough time to work a farm as a business, it certainly leaves enough to manage and grow enough food to significantly augment a family diet. But for some reason, growing one's own food took on the stigma that you were poor, and the modern lawn was born. The modern lawn still does have the potential to offer a healthy dose of exercise, only that there is really no reward to yield from the labor invested. Unfortunately, now the modern lawn doesn't even give back the reward of exercise. Technological advances have given us the riding lawnmower, the weed wacker, the electric hedge trimmer, the leaf blower, and the leaf vacuum.
This is where the backwards part comes in. We spend money on produce at the market because we plant grass and inedible bushes on the land around our homes. We spend money on devices that ensure we physically exert less energy to cut the grass and manicure the bushes. Then we spend money every month on a gym membership so that we may have a means to get the exercise we need to keep us healthy. Never mind for a moment that there are people in the world who, because they only have a thousand or so calories of food to eat daily, they get faint when they work more than four or five hours in the field. Never mind for a moment that while this is happening, we are burning off our excess thousand calorie intake on the equivalent of a human hamster wheel. For right now, just think about how much money we could save if we just stopped this cycle of stupid, and just planted a garden.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Don't Euthanize Me You Socialist Nazi Bastard!
TV News Anchor - "And we're back with our top story of the night. The president has presented a progressive plan that if passed, will be one of the largest government funded projects of all time, 90% of which will come from the federal government. Already there is significant opposition to the president's plan, with several conservative lawmakers declaring it a tremendous waste of taxpayers' dollars. There is also a great deal of public opposition to the plan, with many American citizens also feeling it a waste of tax dollars. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's hear about the details of President Eisenhower's proposal. We have invited Steven Thompson, the congressman leading the committee in charge of analyzing the proposal, to explain a little of it for us. Steven, welcome to the show."
Steven - "Well, thank you. It's good to be here."
TV News Anchor - "Tell us about the president's controversial plan."
Steven - Basically, what the president would like to do is design and build a network of ultra modern highways spanning the country from north to south, and from coast to coast. The idea was first presented by FDR in 1938, but has only recently begun to gain traction. Now,because these highways would have no traffic lights or sharp curves, and they would be maintained with the highest level of care, they would allow U.S. citizens to travel places with a remarkable efficiency. Not only that, but it would allow them to travel to places that were previously nearly impossible to travel to. The highways will facilitate commerce as goods will be able to move more freely throughout the country. Finally, should we be faced with enemy invasion, every five miles of highway will include at least one mile-long segment without turns so as to act as emergency landing strips."
TV News Anchor - "Well it sounds fascinating. Tell me Steven, why then are there so many Americans who are opposed to this plan?"
Steven - "Well, that's a little complicated, but it can be summarized by noting that we have a small number of interest groups, engineering firms and private contractors mainly, who have a powerful lobbying force. They have been spreading a lot of false propaganda to the general public which has created a lot of unnecessary fear of the interstate plan."
TV News Anchor - "Well, we're going live right now to a group of people in Virginia who are currently protesting this bill's passage. Allen, are you with us?"
Allen - "Yes, I am here outside the town hall in Louisville, Kentucky where there is a group of local residents protesting a meeting called today to discuss the interstate highway bill that is being proposed in congress. I have Jerry Braxton here with me. Jerry, tell me why you all are here today."
Jerry - "Well, we think this whole idea is just a waste of our hard earned tax dollars. I'm a farmer. A simple man with a simple life, and most of these people in these here parts are too. What do we need with high speed roads anyway? How is that going to benefit us?"
TV News Anchor - "Steven, he's got a good point. These roads are something Jerry may never use. What do you say to people who don't want their tax dollars going to something they will not use?"
Steven - "Well, whether Jerry knows it or not, this system of highways will benefit him. They will provide the conduit for vehicles to carry the produce he grows to markets never before available to him. It is actually middle to lower class rural Americans who this system will benefit most. Not only will their goods be able to leave for market, but other goods from all over the country will be able to come to their communities at an affordable cost."
TV News Anchor - "I see, that is a good point. Let's go back to Allen for a moment, as I believe he has someone else with a comment."
Allen - "Yes, I'm here with Roslyn. Roslyn what is your take on President Eisenhower's interstate plan?"
Roslyn - "I think it's socialist."
Allen - "Socialist? How so?"
Roslyn - "This plan will be the most expensive and most invasive undertaking the government has ever done. The railroad companies had to build their own tracks, well I say why don't the automobile manufacturers pay for this? This whole idea came from the Nazis, you know. The Nazis built these same super roads so they could round up the Jews and exterminate them faster. That's why I don't like it and why Eisenhower scares me. He's a socialist and a Nazi."
TV News Anchor - "Steven, those are some pretty strong accusations. How do you defend them?"
Steven - Well, I suppose I'll start with the socialist part? Look, there are areas of the market that the private sector just doesn't cover effectively. Fire Departments are a perfect example. The automobile industry would never be able to afford, execute, or manage this type of infrastructure project effectively or in a manner that is fair to all Americans. This is a progressive plan, and I know it's difficult to see the many ways it will benefit American society, but they're there and they will come. As far as the accusation that this idea came from the Nazis, Roslyn is absolutely correct, except for the part about rounding up the Jews. The Jews were actually transported using the German rail system. The autobahn was built as a means of defense. A way to quickly mobilize troupes in case of emergency invasions. President Eisenhower saw this and was impressed. But it also gave him the means to envision the myriad additional ways this system will make America strong."
TV News Anchor - "Well, that's about all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining us Steven."
This is partially a hypothetical. There was indeed a lot of opposition to the Eisenhower interstate system. However, it wasn't exactly the same as portrayed here in my fictional account.
I write this to show the parallels between this huge undertaking, one that obviously paid and continues to pay dividends to the American society and economy, and the opposition to the current health care debate. Some may argue that the two are different, that health care is completely different than a physical infrastructure project. But I say that just as there are physical infrastructures, so too are there social ones. Education is a great example. A national health care program is just as important as an interstate system. In addition to just an overall better quality of life, healthy citizens ensure higher and more consistant production in the workforce. I think Obama is trying to get this point across, but it's difficult when people are more concerned that the government is going to euthanize them.
Steven - "Well, thank you. It's good to be here."
TV News Anchor - "Tell us about the president's controversial plan."
Steven - Basically, what the president would like to do is design and build a network of ultra modern highways spanning the country from north to south, and from coast to coast. The idea was first presented by FDR in 1938, but has only recently begun to gain traction. Now,because these highways would have no traffic lights or sharp curves, and they would be maintained with the highest level of care, they would allow U.S. citizens to travel places with a remarkable efficiency. Not only that, but it would allow them to travel to places that were previously nearly impossible to travel to. The highways will facilitate commerce as goods will be able to move more freely throughout the country. Finally, should we be faced with enemy invasion, every five miles of highway will include at least one mile-long segment without turns so as to act as emergency landing strips."
TV News Anchor - "Well it sounds fascinating. Tell me Steven, why then are there so many Americans who are opposed to this plan?"
Steven - "Well, that's a little complicated, but it can be summarized by noting that we have a small number of interest groups, engineering firms and private contractors mainly, who have a powerful lobbying force. They have been spreading a lot of false propaganda to the general public which has created a lot of unnecessary fear of the interstate plan."
TV News Anchor - "Well, we're going live right now to a group of people in Virginia who are currently protesting this bill's passage. Allen, are you with us?"
Allen - "Yes, I am here outside the town hall in Louisville, Kentucky where there is a group of local residents protesting a meeting called today to discuss the interstate highway bill that is being proposed in congress. I have Jerry Braxton here with me. Jerry, tell me why you all are here today."
Jerry - "Well, we think this whole idea is just a waste of our hard earned tax dollars. I'm a farmer. A simple man with a simple life, and most of these people in these here parts are too. What do we need with high speed roads anyway? How is that going to benefit us?"
TV News Anchor - "Steven, he's got a good point. These roads are something Jerry may never use. What do you say to people who don't want their tax dollars going to something they will not use?"
Steven - "Well, whether Jerry knows it or not, this system of highways will benefit him. They will provide the conduit for vehicles to carry the produce he grows to markets never before available to him. It is actually middle to lower class rural Americans who this system will benefit most. Not only will their goods be able to leave for market, but other goods from all over the country will be able to come to their communities at an affordable cost."
TV News Anchor - "I see, that is a good point. Let's go back to Allen for a moment, as I believe he has someone else with a comment."
Allen - "Yes, I'm here with Roslyn. Roslyn what is your take on President Eisenhower's interstate plan?"
Roslyn - "I think it's socialist."
Allen - "Socialist? How so?"
Roslyn - "This plan will be the most expensive and most invasive undertaking the government has ever done. The railroad companies had to build their own tracks, well I say why don't the automobile manufacturers pay for this? This whole idea came from the Nazis, you know. The Nazis built these same super roads so they could round up the Jews and exterminate them faster. That's why I don't like it and why Eisenhower scares me. He's a socialist and a Nazi."
TV News Anchor - "Steven, those are some pretty strong accusations. How do you defend them?"
Steven - Well, I suppose I'll start with the socialist part? Look, there are areas of the market that the private sector just doesn't cover effectively. Fire Departments are a perfect example. The automobile industry would never be able to afford, execute, or manage this type of infrastructure project effectively or in a manner that is fair to all Americans. This is a progressive plan, and I know it's difficult to see the many ways it will benefit American society, but they're there and they will come. As far as the accusation that this idea came from the Nazis, Roslyn is absolutely correct, except for the part about rounding up the Jews. The Jews were actually transported using the German rail system. The autobahn was built as a means of defense. A way to quickly mobilize troupes in case of emergency invasions. President Eisenhower saw this and was impressed. But it also gave him the means to envision the myriad additional ways this system will make America strong."
TV News Anchor - "Well, that's about all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining us Steven."
This is partially a hypothetical. There was indeed a lot of opposition to the Eisenhower interstate system. However, it wasn't exactly the same as portrayed here in my fictional account.
I write this to show the parallels between this huge undertaking, one that obviously paid and continues to pay dividends to the American society and economy, and the opposition to the current health care debate. Some may argue that the two are different, that health care is completely different than a physical infrastructure project. But I say that just as there are physical infrastructures, so too are there social ones. Education is a great example. A national health care program is just as important as an interstate system. In addition to just an overall better quality of life, healthy citizens ensure higher and more consistant production in the workforce. I think Obama is trying to get this point across, but it's difficult when people are more concerned that the government is going to euthanize them.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Simpleminded Chic
Main Entry: ig-no-rant
Function: adjective
Date: 14th century
1 a: destitute of knowledge or education <
source: Merriam-Webster Online www.m-w.com
I will be using the word ignorant a number of times in this post. I just wanted to get that definition out in the open so that no one would be confused should they mistake my use of the word for its more modern denotation, which for some reason has made it offensive. Which leads me straight away into what I believe is at the root of the political rift in this country that seems to be growing at an alarming rate. Indeed it seems to be growing in tandem with the degree of ignorance to which our society seems to know no end. But is that so bad?
I am ignorant. There, I said it. I lack knowledge in countless more things than I could ever hope to be educated. I will never fully grasp string theory physics or the wonders of the nervous system. I will never be able to walk into a rain forest and start spouting off the Latin botanical names of every plant around me. I will never be a virtuoso cellist, and I will never be an economist. I don't even know how they get the bubbles into cola. These things don't bother me. I accept my own personal limitations. I know there are people who have studied these things and have worked hard to become professionals and they are gifted at what they do. Conversely, I know that I excel in areas where others do not, and that knowledge gives me solace.
That is one kind of ignorance. It's one that is the result of personal limitations and time constraints, as opposed to an utter lack of curiosity for discovering the wonders of the world around you. It is far different than an ignorance that stems from sheer indolence, such as demonstrated by the fact that one in four Americans did not read a single book last year, but the average American watched over four hours of television a day. In a country where those who are educated are called "elitist" with contemptuous fervor, one can only call this new fad of ignorance "Simpleminded Chic".
This is why I don't understand why conservatives are in City Hall, red faced and with spittle in the corners of their mouths, screaming about a universal health plan, the intricacies of which they cannot begin to grasp. Every day since the domestication of agriculture, the world has become an increasingly more complicated place. These complications are at the root of how capitalism began. We specialize in things because we cannot possibly acquire the knowledge to do them all ourselves. Not one of these confused angry people would ever go to the construction site of a new suspension bridge and tell the engineer how to save money or how to better build the structure. Why are they fooling themselves into thinking they understand the workings of the financial, medical, or insurance industries any better than they understand the physics of building a suspension bridge?
So to this I say it is they who are the real socialists. That's right. They are interfering with the very fundamentals of capitalism; the diversification of the workforce. To prevent the real dismantlement of capitalism they should all just get back to work There is nothing more capitalistic that they could do than to get back to the factory and start putting the bubbles into the cola again.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Maiztro
The corn tattoo. Before I started researching artists to give me my tattoo, I had always assumed that people got tattoos for themselves. Because whatever image it was that they had decided to have etched under their skin until their dying days was something important to them. I was wrong. The more I looked through the hundreds of different artists' work, the more I realized that most people get tattoos for everyone else except themselves. Like a new pair of $300 jeans, they get what they think everyone else will like. I realized that all the tattoos I saw looked increasingly similar. Sure, there were gender divides; girls get stars, or birds, or flowers while guys get skulls, or some sort of ferocious animal. And then there are the tattoos that everyone gets like Chinese characters or tribal designs, but soon I was shocked to realize that although it was always right there in front of me, I had never really noticed how narrow a spectrum of images are used for tattoos.
Going back a few years now, I started reading gardening and botany textbooks before I joined the Peace Corps. The more I prepared for my approaching immersion into agricultural life, I increasingly found myself really drawn to the botanical images of vegetable producing plants, especially those sketched in an austere black and white.
I had been thinking of getting a tattoo for years, but it was always really important to me that I choose something I could justify having on my body permanently. Once I settled on the idea of a botanical sketch, because of my years spent working professionally in restaurant kitchens I next decided that I wanted some sort of food. After that, it was only a matter of time before I decided on corn because of the close connection with Latin America that had I had made over the last six years.
Not only is corn the most important staple in Latin American diets and an integral part of the culture, it is also one of the first crops man domesticated, and its roots are in South and Central America. This is the third reason I chose the ear of corn for my tattoo. Although I am still very much a novice at agriculture, I am certain that it is something I will continue to pursue knowledge in and integrate into my own existence for the rest of my life.
I need to go back to the beginning of all this in order to illustrate a very interesting observation I've made since I got this tattoo almost two months ago. Tattoos have a negative connotation assigned to them in our society, especially amongst older generations. One of the most remarkable experiences I have had since getting this tattoo of an ear of corn on my arm, is that people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies approach me and comment on how much they like my tattoo. Which makes me think that if people started to think just a little outside the box about what we consider artistically appropriate to have as tattoos, or maybe if we just got what we really wanted and not what we thought fashionable, that the negative opinions of tattoos and the stereotypes that come along for those who have them, would quickly erode away.
Going back a few years now, I started reading gardening and botany textbooks before I joined the Peace Corps. The more I prepared for my approaching immersion into agricultural life, I increasingly found myself really drawn to the botanical images of vegetable producing plants, especially those sketched in an austere black and white.
I had been thinking of getting a tattoo for years, but it was always really important to me that I choose something I could justify having on my body permanently. Once I settled on the idea of a botanical sketch, because of my years spent working professionally in restaurant kitchens I next decided that I wanted some sort of food. After that, it was only a matter of time before I decided on corn because of the close connection with Latin America that had I had made over the last six years.
Not only is corn the most important staple in Latin American diets and an integral part of the culture, it is also one of the first crops man domesticated, and its roots are in South and Central America. This is the third reason I chose the ear of corn for my tattoo. Although I am still very much a novice at agriculture, I am certain that it is something I will continue to pursue knowledge in and integrate into my own existence for the rest of my life.
I need to go back to the beginning of all this in order to illustrate a very interesting observation I've made since I got this tattoo almost two months ago. Tattoos have a negative connotation assigned to them in our society, especially amongst older generations. One of the most remarkable experiences I have had since getting this tattoo of an ear of corn on my arm, is that people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies approach me and comment on how much they like my tattoo. Which makes me think that if people started to think just a little outside the box about what we consider artistically appropriate to have as tattoos, or maybe if we just got what we really wanted and not what we thought fashionable, that the negative opinions of tattoos and the stereotypes that come along for those who have them, would quickly erode away.
Structural Breakdown Syndrome (SBS)
If you are reading this, you are witnessing history. That's not intended to sound grandiose or self important, it's just the truth. You could be looking out the window, watching a cardinal splashing in the birdbath in your yard, and that would be considered witnessing history as well; especially if the cardinal were not wearing his cassock. But there's always something so daunting about "firsts". It's actually one of the reasons it has taken me so long to start this blog in the first place. It has to be perfect, or meaningful, or in some way utterly profound, very much unlike when one loses his or her virginity I imagine.
So the name. Stokepoint. It's a play on words using my last name, Stokes, and a culinary term, smokepoint. A smokepoint is the exact temperature at which a cooking oil begins to smoke. Each type of cooking oil has its own exact temperature unique to itself. When any oil reaches its own smokepoint, its very structural makeup begins to deteriorate and continues to do so at an exponential rate as its temperature increases. Stokepoint also refers to a point of view. My point of view, to be exact. Thus stokepoint also represents Stokes' point. It just happens to be a coincidence that very often my points of view, stokepoints if you will, are enough to raise the internal temperatures of some individuals. In doing so, some would argue that I have brought certain individuals to the point where it appears as though they begin to smoke and that their very structural makeup began to deteriorate and break down. As Vonnegut said, "So it goes".
So the name. Stokepoint. It's a play on words using my last name, Stokes, and a culinary term, smokepoint. A smokepoint is the exact temperature at which a cooking oil begins to smoke. Each type of cooking oil has its own exact temperature unique to itself. When any oil reaches its own smokepoint, its very structural makeup begins to deteriorate and continues to do so at an exponential rate as its temperature increases. Stokepoint also refers to a point of view. My point of view, to be exact. Thus stokepoint also represents Stokes' point. It just happens to be a coincidence that very often my points of view, stokepoints if you will, are enough to raise the internal temperatures of some individuals. In doing so, some would argue that I have brought certain individuals to the point where it appears as though they begin to smoke and that their very structural makeup began to deteriorate and break down. As Vonnegut said, "So it goes".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
