My local supermarket has a small section of the meat case reserved for halal meat. Halal, as you may know, is the Islamic seal of approval that's sort of their equivalent of kosher, though I'm Muslims and Jews alike would have a problem with my saying that.
I just read about a far-right politician in Sweden who also has a problem with halal food. He claimed that eating halal meat makes you Muslim. That comes as news to most people, including most Muslims, who were under the impression that there was a little more to their religion than that. The incident happened a couple of years ago, but somehow with the backlog of neo-Nazi Islamaphobia I'm only finding out about it now.
It may seem like the garden-variety xenophobia, but it got me thinking about how many of us have become Muslims without knowing it. I don't know that I've ever knowingly eaten halal meat, but I assume I have unknowingly. I mean, at least half the food outlets here in downtown Kitchener are shawarma places now. I've never checked, but I'm assuming shawarma from a restaurant run by people from the Middle East would be halal. So there you go, the whole city has been converted.
And I remember going to an Egyptian restaurant when I was in university. That means I've been Muslim for most of my life now. Wow, I am really behind on my prayers. And I have to plan a trip to Mecca. They don't normally allow non-Muslims into the city, but apparently I just have to show them a receipt from the pita place down the street.
But it gets weirder when you realize that logically, this has to work with kosher products too. Lots of foods are kosher: Coca-Cola, for instance. So a huge portion of the world's population are unknowingly Jewish. And many people - myself included - are both Jewish and Muslim. So now we all have no choice but to get along with each other. Thanks, crazy Swedish politician.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
All Your Life Is Channel 13
There's been a lot of talk about how Sesame Street is introducing a muppet character with autism. That fits the strategy they often use, of demonstrating something from the real world using their characters.
I was thinking that's a pretty good idea; its a concept that kids won't know very well, and this will help them to understand it and learn how to deal with people with autism. Of course, then I realized, that's actually a lesson most of us in society need to learn. This isn't a case of teaching kids how to cross the street, which the rest of us learned a long time ago. In this case, it's something everyone should have learned, but we grew up before they invented empathy.
So perhaps we need a sort of Sesame Street for adults. Okay, that sentence probably took you to a very strange place that I did not intend, and I apologize. What I mean is, we need a show that explains the modern world to us in the same simple way. There could be a trans muppet, a millennial muppet, senior muppet, poor muppet, Trump-voter muppet. We'd learn about everyone in society, and the proper way a mature adult behaves towards them.
Yes, I guess our actual TV shows occasionally do this very thing, usually during A Very Special Episode. But we need something faster and more direct. And perhaps teach people other basic things, from balancing a bank account to downloading apps. Hmm, what else to people need help with...learning that the Earth is round? Okay, maybe we all need to go back to watching the actual Sesame Street instead.
I was thinking that's a pretty good idea; its a concept that kids won't know very well, and this will help them to understand it and learn how to deal with people with autism. Of course, then I realized, that's actually a lesson most of us in society need to learn. This isn't a case of teaching kids how to cross the street, which the rest of us learned a long time ago. In this case, it's something everyone should have learned, but we grew up before they invented empathy.
So perhaps we need a sort of Sesame Street for adults. Okay, that sentence probably took you to a very strange place that I did not intend, and I apologize. What I mean is, we need a show that explains the modern world to us in the same simple way. There could be a trans muppet, a millennial muppet, senior muppet, poor muppet, Trump-voter muppet. We'd learn about everyone in society, and the proper way a mature adult behaves towards them.
Yes, I guess our actual TV shows occasionally do this very thing, usually during A Very Special Episode. But we need something faster and more direct. And perhaps teach people other basic things, from balancing a bank account to downloading apps. Hmm, what else to people need help with...learning that the Earth is round? Okay, maybe we all need to go back to watching the actual Sesame Street instead.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Sunday Afternoon's Alright For Fighting
TSN and CTV news had an interesting report this week on the decline of fighting in hockey. Statistically, there has been a steady decline in the amount of fighting, particularly over the last ten years. Since the 2005 strike, the game has been changed by the crackdown on obstruction and the salary cap. Those two factors have conspired to reduce fighting: higher speeds and tight budgets have meant that teams can't spare a roster spot for someone who can't contribute with skill.
I always thought that was the biggest argument against fighting in hockey; even if you accept the belief that fights are a good way to rally the team, you're essentially talking about having a mascot who is actually a team member. Give the Phillie Phanatic a spot on the bench and a multi-million dollar contract and suddenly he doesn't seem so fun.
But what was also interesting in the report was how fighting increased in the first place. Back in the Original Six days, fighting was much less common, with about a fight every four games. In the expansion era, it skyrocketed, peaking in the 80's at more than one fight a game. Although there are fewer fights now, we're still above what it was in the sixties.
Of course, this goes against the Cherryist orthodoxy, which states that: (1) you can't have hockey without fighting, and (2) the Original Six was a golden era when everything was perfect, until it was contaminated by the Swedes and Gary Bettman.
So it's amusing that fighting may cure itself. But if you really want to see a sport where fighting is tolerated, have no fear, NASCAR is here. Fighting isn't new there; many say the sport was launched into the public consciousness with the Allison-Yarborough tilt at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500.
But in recent years there have been plenty of fights following races. And NASCAR has seems to be okay with it, doling out surprisingly little punishment, while also relaxing punishment for the misbehaviour on the track that leads to post-race fights. Indeed, Jalopnik.com notes that in the most recent fight, no one was fined, but several mechanics paid the price for - wait for it - illegal lug nuts.
It can't be a coincidence that NASCAR has become more tolerant of fights during the time that their attendance is down, and their TV ratings are in free-fall. You can understand their thinking, since one of the many explanations for the sport's decline in popularity is that it's hard to care about this generation of drivers. You'll learn something about them after seeing them in post-race confrontations, even if it's just fighting style.
But I have always had my doubts about fighting as a way to popularity for a sport. The problem is that there's a difference between what people enjoy, and what they choose. Yes, the audience usually enjoys themselves during a hockey fight, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a large part of the public wanting to watch the sport. People are in a different frame of mind when they’re choosing how to spend their time an money, and a sport that gets a reputation as an uncivilized guilty pleasure will lose out.
I always thought that was the biggest argument against fighting in hockey; even if you accept the belief that fights are a good way to rally the team, you're essentially talking about having a mascot who is actually a team member. Give the Phillie Phanatic a spot on the bench and a multi-million dollar contract and suddenly he doesn't seem so fun.
But what was also interesting in the report was how fighting increased in the first place. Back in the Original Six days, fighting was much less common, with about a fight every four games. In the expansion era, it skyrocketed, peaking in the 80's at more than one fight a game. Although there are fewer fights now, we're still above what it was in the sixties.
Of course, this goes against the Cherryist orthodoxy, which states that: (1) you can't have hockey without fighting, and (2) the Original Six was a golden era when everything was perfect, until it was contaminated by the Swedes and Gary Bettman.
So it's amusing that fighting may cure itself. But if you really want to see a sport where fighting is tolerated, have no fear, NASCAR is here. Fighting isn't new there; many say the sport was launched into the public consciousness with the Allison-Yarborough tilt at the end of the 1979 Daytona 500.
But in recent years there have been plenty of fights following races. And NASCAR has seems to be okay with it, doling out surprisingly little punishment, while also relaxing punishment for the misbehaviour on the track that leads to post-race fights. Indeed, Jalopnik.com notes that in the most recent fight, no one was fined, but several mechanics paid the price for - wait for it - illegal lug nuts.
It can't be a coincidence that NASCAR has become more tolerant of fights during the time that their attendance is down, and their TV ratings are in free-fall. You can understand their thinking, since one of the many explanations for the sport's decline in popularity is that it's hard to care about this generation of drivers. You'll learn something about them after seeing them in post-race confrontations, even if it's just fighting style.
But I have always had my doubts about fighting as a way to popularity for a sport. The problem is that there's a difference between what people enjoy, and what they choose. Yes, the audience usually enjoys themselves during a hockey fight, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a large part of the public wanting to watch the sport. People are in a different frame of mind when they’re choosing how to spend their time an money, and a sport that gets a reputation as an uncivilized guilty pleasure will lose out.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #37
They give out free virtual reality goggles in cases of beer.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Cashing-In Their Chips
There's a new Chips movie coming out - oh, I'm sorry, I mean CHiPs. It's based on the 70's/80's TV show. Though really, it's not a movie of the TV series, it's a spoof of the series. Though really, it's not a spoof of the series, it's a generic "dumb guys" movie where the characters are named after the ones in the original.
I don't really like this idea of reviving pop-culture artifacts just to make fun of them. No, I wasn't a fan of the original show, nor do I believe that anything is above satire. But we're not talking about an SNL sketch here, we're talking about a movie that probably cost more than the entire series' combined budget, aimed at the children of the people who watched the original. That really seems like kicking them when they're down.
The thinking behind it is transparent: they get the name recognition of an existing property, but don't have to worry about offending or alienating legions of fans. Somewhere out there are people who still take the show seriously, and are probably really angry right now, but it doesn't matter to the studios, since they don't make up much of the movie-going population.
I actually feel a little sorry for them. Sure, they don't have great taste in TV, but they're getting thrown under the bus just because they're aging and few in number. And the fact is that we're all going to be in their position eventually. We all have our guilty pleasures in entertainment, and they'll all make for easy fodder for lazy movies.
I don't really like this idea of reviving pop-culture artifacts just to make fun of them. No, I wasn't a fan of the original show, nor do I believe that anything is above satire. But we're not talking about an SNL sketch here, we're talking about a movie that probably cost more than the entire series' combined budget, aimed at the children of the people who watched the original. That really seems like kicking them when they're down.
The thinking behind it is transparent: they get the name recognition of an existing property, but don't have to worry about offending or alienating legions of fans. Somewhere out there are people who still take the show seriously, and are probably really angry right now, but it doesn't matter to the studios, since they don't make up much of the movie-going population.
I actually feel a little sorry for them. Sure, they don't have great taste in TV, but they're getting thrown under the bus just because they're aging and few in number. And the fact is that we're all going to be in their position eventually. We all have our guilty pleasures in entertainment, and they'll all make for easy fodder for lazy movies.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Who Sells Out
I'm not really comfortable when the music business mixes with advertising. I lived through the alternative music era of the early nineties, when any musician not busking for the money to eat was considered a sell-out. Of course, the pendulum swung back the other way, and by the end of the decade, people were congratulating Moby for licensing all 18 tracks from his album Play. The pendulum hasn't swung back to anti-commercialism again, so we're still in an era when there's little consequence for musicians selling their soul to the ad biz. But even if fans and journalists don't punish artists, there are still some things to consider.
This used to be considered selling out, but it's now acceptable to anyone not hanging on to their 90's flannel. The argument in favour of selling your sing for commercial use is that you have the song, what harm does it do if you let someone else user it? My response is to ask, how sure are you that selling this song won't influence how you write your next song? Which brings us to...
X Ambassadors really cashed in when they had the luck to write a song called "Renegades" just as Jeep was introducing a new SUV called the Renegade. I wonder how many struggling bands have started reading the car mags to find out what models are coming soon.
This is also the level Fitz and the Tantrums are going to for their song, "HandClap," which is quickly infecting stadium playlists everywhere. I mean, it's great that it's displacing DJ Casper's "Cha Cha Slide" who's "Everybody Clap Your Hands" soundbite has been a crutch for hack stadium DJ's for years.
At this point you're really tarnishing your song's memory, since you're making the song literally about the product. This means that people will forever hear the commercial version in their heads when they think of your song. This still happens to me for "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" (Minute Maid) and "I Can't Help Myself" (Duncan Hines) even decades after those ads were on the air. My point is, you only resort to this when you are truly done with the song, and never expect that you or anyone else will use it for its original intention ever again.
A few years ago I heard them play "Your Love" at a baseball game. It's one of those songs you know you've heard, but you can't place it, so I had to look it up on to identify it. It's by The Outfield, which I discovered is a British band, even though they're named after a baseball term. That's weirdness I can appreciate.
But in the Glee aftermath you're allowed to like eighties music as long as you pretend you're only liking it ironically, so the song has a huge value to advertisers. That's how "Your Love" becomes a baseball anthem, and how advertisers get interested in putting it into a commercial, thus looking hip and appealing to old people at the same time. But by allowing an ad to re-write the song to tell the story of a loser with a wrinkled shirt to sell Bounce sheets, the song becomes a punchline.
At this point, you're not merely damaging the song, you're turning it into a joke. I can talk about "Sunshine of My Life," and you may remember it as a great song, as long as you don't try to hum along with Stevie Wonder and find yourself singing about orange juice. But once your song is a punchline, people can't even remember the existence of the song and take it seriously. To put it another way, changing the lyrics is like killing the song, this is like killing the song and then erasing all evidence it ever existed.
Level 1
Selling your song
This is when you let someone use your song in an ad. This seems like a harmless thing to do, and in the modern world, it's probably the best way to get your song heard. The problem is that the ad will now be by far the number one way people hear your song. So it's no longer your song, it's the song from the Nissan commercial.This used to be considered selling out, but it's now acceptable to anyone not hanging on to their 90's flannel. The argument in favour of selling your sing for commercial use is that you have the song, what harm does it do if you let someone else user it? My response is to ask, how sure are you that selling this song won't influence how you write your next song? Which brings us to...
Level 1b
Selling your next song
X Ambassadors really cashed in when they had the luck to write a song called "Renegades" just as Jeep was introducing a new SUV called the Renegade. I wonder how many struggling bands have started reading the car mags to find out what models are coming soon.
This is also the level Fitz and the Tantrums are going to for their song, "HandClap," which is quickly infecting stadium playlists everywhere. I mean, it's great that it's displacing DJ Casper's "Cha Cha Slide" who's "Everybody Clap Your Hands" soundbite has been a crutch for hack stadium DJ's for years.
Level 2
Letting them change the lyrics
At this point you're really tarnishing your song's memory, since you're making the song literally about the product. This means that people will forever hear the commercial version in their heads when they think of your song. This still happens to me for "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" (Minute Maid) and "I Can't Help Myself" (Duncan Hines) even decades after those ads were on the air. My point is, you only resort to this when you are truly done with the song, and never expect that you or anyone else will use it for its original intention ever again.
Level 3
Changing the lyrics to something completely different
A few years ago I heard them play "Your Love" at a baseball game. It's one of those songs you know you've heard, but you can't place it, so I had to look it up on to identify it. It's by The Outfield, which I discovered is a British band, even though they're named after a baseball term. That's weirdness I can appreciate.
But in the Glee aftermath you're allowed to like eighties music as long as you pretend you're only liking it ironically, so the song has a huge value to advertisers. That's how "Your Love" becomes a baseball anthem, and how advertisers get interested in putting it into a commercial, thus looking hip and appealing to old people at the same time. But by allowing an ad to re-write the song to tell the story of a loser with a wrinkled shirt to sell Bounce sheets, the song becomes a punchline.
At this point, you're not merely damaging the song, you're turning it into a joke. I can talk about "Sunshine of My Life," and you may remember it as a great song, as long as you don't try to hum along with Stevie Wonder and find yourself singing about orange juice. But once your song is a punchline, people can't even remember the existence of the song and take it seriously. To put it another way, changing the lyrics is like killing the song, this is like killing the song and then erasing all evidence it ever existed.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
If You Can't Trust Ronald McDonald...
Lately, McDonald's has been heavily advertising their Ronald McDonald House program, which funds housing for families of sick kids who are in hospital. Of course, is easy to be suspicious of such ads, since it's a corporation spending money to congratulate itself for spending money, and you wonder how much more they could have done with the money they spent telling us about the money they spent. Okay, in this case you can justify it because they're encouraging people to give to the cause themselves, by putting their extra change in the little box by the till.
How many customers do put money in there? I've had a few people warn me quite seriously that all those donations just go straight to McDonald's profits. Personally, I find that hard to believe. I'm no fan of corporate America, but I doubt they'd try something like that.
The negative publicity if found out wouldn't be worth it. And it would require the complicity of so many people; I can understand a few sociopathic executives making an amoral decision, But not the number required here.
But what I find interesting is the huge amount of cynicism that goes into the belief that McDonald's is so corrupt. I'm reminded of something I read about philosophy profs once. It was a kind of BS detector for extreme philosophical views: ask how the views affect their actual lives.
Sometimes you'll hear a philosopher suggest something radical: say, all of reality is in our imagination, or language doesn't contain any information. So ask yourself, does the person expressing these views act like a person who actually believes those views? If you truly believe that reality is an illusion, you wouldn't navigate society the way most of us do. You'd probably cower in your bedroom yelling at the delusions to leave you alone. Or at the very least, you wouldn't let it bother you when the fictional grocery store is out of the figment of collective imagination that is cookie dough ice cream. But usually, these radical thinkers go through the same actions in their everyday lives. If their beliefs don't affect the way they see the world, you have to wonder if they really hold those beliefs, or they're just trying to sound smart or maybe shocking.
I'd apply the same technique to cynicism. If you truly believe that the world is so corrupt that McDonald's steals from its own charity, that's going to affect the way you act. After all, there are countries where such corruption is rife, and the people there act accordingly. For one thing, if you believe everyone around you is on the take, you'll want your piece of the action. You'll assume you have to pay to get things done. You won't have trust in others.
And if your faith in humanity doesn't extend to Ronald McDonald House, then there are plenty of other things to mistrust. You don't even have to leave your local McDonald's to see examples. For one thing, how can you even trust the food? Do you let your kids into the Play Place? Do you trust their debit machine? See, it's just not logically consistent to live in our world which is based so much in trust of those around you, then pick out one thing and claim an absolute lack of trust.
Yes, I know the folks bad mouthing the charity box are really just trying to justify their own cheapness. But I think that opening yourself to that kind of extreme cynicism makes you vulnerable to some bad decision making. If you occasionally and arbitrarily ignore or avoid parts of society, you'll miss out on a lot. This same kind of isolated cynicism-when-convenient contributes to the post-fact situation we're experiencing. If you're in the habit of using outlandish excuses to reject entire institutions when it's convenient, then it becomes easier to understand how you break from accepted consensus.
How many customers do put money in there? I've had a few people warn me quite seriously that all those donations just go straight to McDonald's profits. Personally, I find that hard to believe. I'm no fan of corporate America, but I doubt they'd try something like that.
The negative publicity if found out wouldn't be worth it. And it would require the complicity of so many people; I can understand a few sociopathic executives making an amoral decision, But not the number required here.
But what I find interesting is the huge amount of cynicism that goes into the belief that McDonald's is so corrupt. I'm reminded of something I read about philosophy profs once. It was a kind of BS detector for extreme philosophical views: ask how the views affect their actual lives.
Sometimes you'll hear a philosopher suggest something radical: say, all of reality is in our imagination, or language doesn't contain any information. So ask yourself, does the person expressing these views act like a person who actually believes those views? If you truly believe that reality is an illusion, you wouldn't navigate society the way most of us do. You'd probably cower in your bedroom yelling at the delusions to leave you alone. Or at the very least, you wouldn't let it bother you when the fictional grocery store is out of the figment of collective imagination that is cookie dough ice cream. But usually, these radical thinkers go through the same actions in their everyday lives. If their beliefs don't affect the way they see the world, you have to wonder if they really hold those beliefs, or they're just trying to sound smart or maybe shocking.
I'd apply the same technique to cynicism. If you truly believe that the world is so corrupt that McDonald's steals from its own charity, that's going to affect the way you act. After all, there are countries where such corruption is rife, and the people there act accordingly. For one thing, if you believe everyone around you is on the take, you'll want your piece of the action. You'll assume you have to pay to get things done. You won't have trust in others.
And if your faith in humanity doesn't extend to Ronald McDonald House, then there are plenty of other things to mistrust. You don't even have to leave your local McDonald's to see examples. For one thing, how can you even trust the food? Do you let your kids into the Play Place? Do you trust their debit machine? See, it's just not logically consistent to live in our world which is based so much in trust of those around you, then pick out one thing and claim an absolute lack of trust.
Yes, I know the folks bad mouthing the charity box are really just trying to justify their own cheapness. But I think that opening yourself to that kind of extreme cynicism makes you vulnerable to some bad decision making. If you occasionally and arbitrarily ignore or avoid parts of society, you'll miss out on a lot. This same kind of isolated cynicism-when-convenient contributes to the post-fact situation we're experiencing. If you're in the habit of using outlandish excuses to reject entire institutions when it's convenient, then it becomes easier to understand how you break from accepted consensus.
Friday, March 3, 2017
Survival Of Whoever
Evolution and Capitalism have a lot in common. They can produce highly efficient solutions to problems, they're ruthless, and they act slowly. It's also weird what they each choose to hone to ultimate efficiency. Did you know that an eagle's eyeball is warped slightly so that whatever is at the centre of its field of vision appears magnifed? But on the other hand, manatees.
And what about peacocks? Five million years ago, one female had a tail-feather fetish; now look at them. Meanwhile, they're are so many living things that obviously need fixing. You just have to look at your own body for examples (asuming my blog is only read by humans.) As any sports fan can tell you, the human knee could use a good redesign.
But it's the same with capitalism. It can produce efficient solutions to problems. There are companies like Amazon and Walmart that have developed highly efficient systems to move items around the world. But then there's that phone cases and printer cartriges kiosk at the mall that no one ever seems to buy anything from. It's capitalism's panda, eating one plant, not really interested in breeding, yet somehow hanging on and surviving.
And both capitalism and evolution can be agonizingly slow. A lot of human health problems, from knee injuries to sinus infections, are a result of our bodies not being adapted to walking upright, even though we started doing that five million years ago. And there are so many products that need work. Like, when you buy a package of six muffins at the local grocery store, they come in a plastic tray. The label has a sticker wrapped around it. But because the plastic case doesn't have flat sides, the sticky side of the label is exposed in several places. That means it ends up sticking to any bread or produce bags that come near it.
Eventually, the design will be fixed. But that's only motivated by the supermarket losing enough business, just like evolution is only motivated by creatures' survival rates. So our sinuses might cause us pain, but it won't change unless it causes people to die. Say, they get eaten by a lion because they were distracted by pain. But even that might be faster than lost sales causing a change in the muffin tray design. So put some thought into the products you choose; you're helping businesses evolve.
And what about peacocks? Five million years ago, one female had a tail-feather fetish; now look at them. Meanwhile, they're are so many living things that obviously need fixing. You just have to look at your own body for examples (asuming my blog is only read by humans.) As any sports fan can tell you, the human knee could use a good redesign.
But it's the same with capitalism. It can produce efficient solutions to problems. There are companies like Amazon and Walmart that have developed highly efficient systems to move items around the world. But then there's that phone cases and printer cartriges kiosk at the mall that no one ever seems to buy anything from. It's capitalism's panda, eating one plant, not really interested in breeding, yet somehow hanging on and surviving.
And both capitalism and evolution can be agonizingly slow. A lot of human health problems, from knee injuries to sinus infections, are a result of our bodies not being adapted to walking upright, even though we started doing that five million years ago. And there are so many products that need work. Like, when you buy a package of six muffins at the local grocery store, they come in a plastic tray. The label has a sticker wrapped around it. But because the plastic case doesn't have flat sides, the sticky side of the label is exposed in several places. That means it ends up sticking to any bread or produce bags that come near it.
Eventually, the design will be fixed. But that's only motivated by the supermarket losing enough business, just like evolution is only motivated by creatures' survival rates. So our sinuses might cause us pain, but it won't change unless it causes people to die. Say, they get eaten by a lion because they were distracted by pain. But even that might be faster than lost sales causing a change in the muffin tray design. So put some thought into the products you choose; you're helping businesses evolve.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)