Free the Animal

Juxtaposition

I had intended to blog about this collection of cell phone videos (link: Seth Godin) taken in public school classrooms that, really, resemble more the monkey cages at the zoo. What to say about all that? One commenter points to this video of a teacher having not nearly so much trouble. What's the difference?

I think it has a lot to do with the basis upon which one presumes or expects respect. In the former collection, I suspect most of those teachers approach the issue of respect as one of hierarchical authority and position; whereas, in the latter, respect is approached as something earned. I'm not excusing their behavior; they're punks, most of them, and I'm sure you can trace it right back to their parents. They've had respect shoved down their throats all their lives as a matter of hierarchy and authority, but have probably never been approached by an adult who would show them the respect of treating the issue and relationship as one of mutual value exchange to mutual enrichment and benefit.

I'm talking primarily about older kids, not 10-12 year olds and below. The younger the kid, yes, the more I think it's a matter of simple authority that's a function of parents' inherent natural responsibility that implies a natural authority (it's a similar derivation to natural rights). I'm simply saying that part of educating kids to be independent is a process of shifting authority from parents (and their proxies, like teachers) to the children and I think the ideal mechanism for accomplishing that is a process of mutually earned respect.

Coincidentally, I saw that same link just this morning in a comment at Warren Meyer's blog, linked from Billy Beck. Outlawing non-credentialed parents from seeing to their kids' own educations? Wow. This is quoted from the appellate ruling:

A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.

So, considering what I wrote above, does that look to you more like an exercise in mutual respect earning through exchanges of values, or more like hierarchical authority, backed by jack boots, clubs, guns, police, prosecutors, courts, jails, and execution chambers?

The anti-civilization primitivity on display, even from the bench of a major appellate court, is astounding. I don't know about you, but I see right through those robes. I see savages.

"I would push for it in a case of injustice"

Note to the despicable Dale Franks: Here's how real men, who know and understand injustice when they see it, stand up to the state.

Later: While I haven't really the slightest clue of Obama's personal inner take on the drug war -- and I'm filled with foreboding about the whole upcoming mess -- if he does grab the presidency and does truly make serious headway in ending the evil war on drugs, I for one will be willing to overlook a whole lot of the other shit he's going to dump on America (which isn't going to be easy, but I'll give it a shot if he really demonstrates a commitment). It seems to me that the drug war would really be his big opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship.

Object Lesson

Well another "memoir" written by a liar -- Margaret Seltzer aka Margaret B. Jones -- goes down in flames. Ha. Ha. Ha. "Love [those] Consequences." Whatever; I'd have have never read it anyway, and hated it if I had. You'll recall James Frey and how he suckered Oprah with A Million Little Pieces. Then there was Misha Defonseca with her "memoir" of the Holocaust years just a few days ago...

I bring it up simply as an object lesson, as something to keep in the forefront of your mind when dealing with other people and the things they say -- and the things they believe to be true. It's the latter that's far more pernicious. Liars on grand scale can only exist because human beings seem to be so gullible.

The other thing to point out is that it's entirely unsurprising. Look at how many people still believe the story about their imaginary friend Jesus Claus that was told to them when they were kids. ...On the other hand, there's something enticing about believing the fantastic, isn't there? It's a big part of what makes us human and I can definitely see the value in it from a lot of angles. After all, a whole lot of of the great things that get done, get done because someone was stupid or gullible enough to believe it could be done, and made it so. I suppose the challenge is in keeping it human, but keeping it as real as possible, i.e., management.

The Cario and Aerobic Myth

Now that I'm a regular at the gym, coming up on a year, I am quite comfortable concluding that the "cardio craze" is complete bunk. It's of virtually no value whatsoever, and the downsides far outweigh any advantages. I'd love it if my gym -- which is a 5-minute walk, so I'm not about to switch -- would dump all but a few of the cardio machines that take up enormous space, and use the space for crossfit training.

How did I come to this conclusion? Well, Art's essay on Evolutionary Fitness (PDF) clued me in and made me aware, so it was in my field of view and I've observed.

The adaptive and variable energy demands of our ancestral existence are gone. We live a low energy flux and metabolically unvaried existence in bodies designed for another lifeway. We are hunter/gatherers in pin-stripe suits, living a sedentary life and it is killing us in ways our ancestors never experienced. Virtually all the degenerative diseases–atherosclerosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, declining muscle mass–of modern civilization are unheard of among hunter-gatherers and were not part of our ancestral experience. Most modern fitness prescriptions are static and agricultural. These programs model the body as a machine, not as an adaptive organism. Consequently, they prescribe a regime in which the body is under-fed and over-trained. They are not based on adaptation, but on steady state analysis. These models assume the body is a linear process that maintains a steady state. In fact, all bodily processes are highly non-linear and these non-linearities must be exploited in any effective fitness program. The key to exploiting the highly non-linear and dynamic adaptive metabolic processes of the human body is to achieve the right mixture of intensity and variety of activities.

Here is an example of the Zen-like twists that adaptive, non-linear systems like human metabolism follow that confound mechanistic thinking. The body uses fat in the aerobic (ST and lower IT) zone. So, linear thinking suggests that to burn fat you should operate in that zone. It would not surprise someone trained to understand the adaptive capabilities of the human body that if you burn more fat the body will find a way to produce more. And this is just what happens when you energy flows over the aerobic pathway—your body releases hormone messengers that signal higher fat production.

You do burn a higher proportion of calories as fat in the aerobic zone, but that is no reason to stay there. You burn more calories and more fat in total when you train at high intensity. And you do not open the metabolic pathways that cause your body to make more fat. Energy that flows over the anaerobic pathway signals your body to make more muscle and to burn fat.

You incur an oxygen depth that raises metabolism for days after a high intensity session. Above all, you bring adaptations that burn fat. As the body remodels in response to the adaptive challenge presented by a brief, high-intensity session, it preferentially burns fat. In addition, you put on lean muscle mass that burns energy continuously. From 60 to 70 per cent of the energy you burn is at your basal metabolic rate. If you gain lean muscle mass you raise your basal metabolic rate and, thus, burn more energy 24 hours a day.

(I know I've mentioned and linked to this essay before, but presuming your interest, if you haven't taken the time to to read it, you should -- and I'm reading it for the third time.)

Anyway, long story short, I've seen amazing things in the gym. I see these same people, toiling away on the treadmill, day after day, week after week, month after month and they look like zombies to me. Far from the picture of health, they look highly stressed, swollen from body-wide inflammation, pale -- awful. And they make no noticeable gains. On the other hand, a number of people have come up to me and complimented me on the gains I've made and they've noticed. I work out, high intensity, for a total of one hour per week -- some do that every day on the treadmill or elliptical.

All that, to get to this: here's a couple of posts my Mark Sisson, a former long-distance runner, covering the cardio-aerobic myth.

Dear Mark: Chronic Cardio

More Chronic Cardio Talk

As Art says he feels like saying when he sees joggers on the street: "slow down and live longer."

Problem and Solution

The problem:

The solution? Earth Class Mail. I believe it was 1992, 15 years ago by now, that I obtained my first fax board for my PC, along with version 1.0 of Winfax software. In fact, that was my first "fax machine," period. In fact, I've never, as a matter of routine, sent or received faxes by means of physical paper and moreover have always seen the facsimile as a rather unfortunate invention which likely slowed the development of email technology and electronic signatures. (That last link, DocuSign, is a vendor for my company and we've been very happy with them over several years now.)

We have a couple of high-end copy machines at the office, machines that are also high-speed fax machines, network scanners, and network printers with a finishing module for double-sided printing, collating, and stapling. One nice thing about being out of the office is that if something comes via "Earth Class Mail" that's important and time sensitive, they can just dump it in the scanner and email the PDF to me wherever. But just as I've always dealt with faxes electronically, I've longed for a good solution for snail mail for my personal affairs and business matters not tied to my company (and I get lots of mail, as you can see -- that's a couple week's worth). I just hate it. It's not that I don't have time; I do. It's just that I hate it. I bring the mail in and I just hate the physical aspect of opening it. It's probably because I'm not the kind of person who is going to actually deal with any of the matters at hand on the spot, so I've got to somehow organize it so I can shuffle and riffle through and deal with it at a later time. Yuk.

Perhaps that's a mystery to you. Oh, well. That's me. There are things I can dive into with non-stop gusto for days on end. But others, like snail mail, I'm the world's biggest procrastinator.

Now get this, because it's one of the weirdest coincidences ever. Last night, on total whim, I decided to go searching for a service where you could forward all your mail (like a Mailboxes Etc.), but rather than have to go pick it up, they scan it and either upload it to your account on their web server, or email it to you. This gives you two principal advantages: you get your mail wherever, and you can dump it into electronic folders very quickly for later processing, or just junk it on the spot.

Back to the coincidence. I quickly found Earth Class Mail, did some quick research, and signed up for a year of service at about $250 that includes 100 pieces of mail per month (they have a $150 per year service too). Once finished with the sign up, I cracked open Tim Ferris' book for a bit, then decided to catch a little TV and ended up surfing right into Mojo HD where Start-Up Junkies was on, and what start-up do you suppose they were profiling?

Is that weird, or what? Honestly, I had never heard about that company or that TV show before in my life, and in the space of two hours set against nearly a half-million hours lived so far, they come together.

Do-do-do-do...

"Above the Fruited Plain..."

Amerika, Amerika...

All went well until early July. That’s when the two landowners discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

Honestly? I feel like slapping the face of the very next person I ever hear singing that song. Other than that, at least I've got the Technorati Tag spot on, below.

Fools. But don't worry...I hear there's an election coming up any time now.

Later: Oh, Jeesus, there's even more. Ha; I can't help but laugh at you ethanol fools and those of you who fall for it. Fools.

(via Regina Wilshire)

Oh, Jesus

Here we go again. Another presumably smart person lashing out, getting together with a bunch of other presumably smart people, all who feel threatened because their primitive superstitious beliefs make them look increasingly like fucking morons rather than...well..."presumably smart people." So, they're going to try to poke a hole or two in Natural Selection, which is then somehow, magically, supposed to make your imaginary friend more real. Either they are fucking morons, or they surely think you are.

Just deal with it (reality) and stop the silly nonsense in dressing up non-science with a nice pink ribbon. Religion is a pig when seen as anything other than fantasy. As fantasy, go ahead and knock yourselves out.

Jesus.

Later: And just to make it clear, the premise of the film, that you can't question Darwinism is a load of bullshit, not to mention a big fat lie. Real scientists are out questioning Darwin's hypothesis every single day. That's how science is done: you form a hypothesis that's falsifiable in the sense that it's formed in a way that allows it to be tested, so that if false, you can actually prove it false, and if true, you can't; in spite of your best efforts. "God" doesn't even qualify as a scientific hypothesis because there is no possible scientific test that could count against it ("well, god just created the Universe that way..." -- see?).

I watch something on Discovery or Science or National Geographic virtually everyday that has real scientists questioning and testing Darwin's hypothesis, trying to prove it wrong. Nobody even comes close, and that is science. It is not the process of trying to confirm, which is precisely how science has gone so awry in fields like nutrition. It is the continual, never-ending process of trying to falsify, and either doing so and moving on, or coming up short, which is what lends more and more credence to the hypothesis, but never complete certainty in a scientific context, i.e., as a discipline of logical procedure.

"Hatchet in Buckley's Head"

Edward Cline did -- bury one, that is. It's well deserved.

Buckley saved their necks and provided them with a "system" of ideas they could feel at home with. He persuaded a spent and ideologically rudderless conservative movement to base its political philosophy on religion, altruism, and self-sacrifice as an alternative to the "atheistic" liberal welfare state of society, altruism and self-sacrifice. Individual rights were nothing to him if not "God-given." He was as much an enemy of freedom - and of freedom of speech - as any holy-roller Democrat. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the policies advocated by "atheistic" or secular collectivists and "religious" ones. Buckley never seriously challenged the "status quo" of controls, deficit spending, or the regulation of business and industry. He was one of the original advocates of volunteerism or mandatory public service.

Damn right. Read the whole thing. The title is Billy's line.

What About Breakfast at Tiffany's?

And I said, what about, Breakfast at Tiffany's?
She said I, think I, remember the film
And as I recall, I think, we both kind of liked it
And I said, well that's, the one thing we've got

I'm hooked on Apple TV, if you must know. And yesterday afternoon I rented Breakfast at Tiffany's starring the trés mignionne Audrey Hepburn and watched it for what I believe may the very first time, though I seem to recall some of the funny Mickey Rooney bits as Mr. Yunioshi. Hey, here's the original trailer.

I just thought the film was a delight from start to finish. They just don't seem to make 'em like that, anymore. Or, perhaps it's because I'm just from a different era, or something. I note that the film was released in 1961, 47 years ago and the year I was born.

It's just nice to see a feel good film where people are civilized, one could almost say, to a fault (excepting the bit of shoplifting, I suppose). Do you know what I mean? I could run things down, but the whole premise and undercurrent of the film is that people have their own lives, owe nobody anything, and you just get along or you don't. I think perhaps the touchstone for what I'm talking about is Holly's treatment of her estranged husband, Doc (Buddy Ebsen); and he of her. If that film was made today, people would be running all over getting restraining orders, calling out SWAT teams, and such. And oh, another great performance of politesse was that of John McGiver behind the counter at Tiffany's, where Holly and Paul (George Peppard) had decided upon a budget of $10, with McGiver eventually and graciously agreeing to engrave a ring from a box of Cracker Jacks.

The one thing I don't get about the film? Moon River. Yea, it's certainly a true classic and great song, but other than Holly's performance with Paul looking on from the fire escape, I just don't really see how the song fits.

Great film, and you don't need Apple TV, a trip to the video store, or wait for Netflix to watch it. Just go to the iTunes store on your Mac or PC and start watching it seconds after it begins downloading, for $2.99. What a deal. It's great to know that I can watch it again any old time I want, and I don't have to have a library of DVDs to do it.

And now here's Deep Blue Something performing those 1995 hit lyrics, above, to video.

I hate to even bring this up, but I think my admiration of the film is pronounced by the fact that later that evening, Bea and I went for some dinner and then saw Vantage Point. I'm not going to dwell on it because it was just awful. It wasn't really even a movie, as far as I could tell. Here's what you get from the trailer: president gets shot; but not really; they kidnap him anyway. So I expected that since they gave all that away, the plot would proceed from there with the "vantage points" serving to help recover Mr. President. Nope. That's it. The vantage points serve to explain the film to you in minute detail. You see the same 10 minutes eight times. From the perspective of art, it would be like taking the Mona Lisa and examining it under a microscope. That's not how art is done, nor is it the point of it. So, two thumbs down; not even suitable to rent.