A study released this week states that since chimpanzees and humans diverged genetically 6 million years ago, chimpanzees have evolved more than humans. Scientists (those evil, godless heretics) found a greater ratio of positive mutations in DNA to silent (non-expressed) or negative mutations than in humans. The article I linked does point out a great number of mitigating factors that may nullify the results, such as there being a much larger population of chimps than humans over the time period since the split. However, the conclusion reached brings up an interesting point, that humans have removed themselves from the evolutionary chain.
To put it simply, humans have stopped evolving at a rate consistent with the rest of the natural world. First, what causes evolution? As I understand it, evolution is the result of many factors, but primarily it is the selection of beneficial genetic mutations over time resulting in genetic and physical changes in a population. Those changes that are advantageous are kept in the population via the carrier not dying. Usually these changes go unnoticed (silent) or are quickly eliminated by the death of the new mutation. However, as the environment changes, a genotype that once worked may not be as efficient as before, and a new genotype arises that is more efficient and outcompetes the older type, resulting in a change in population or even extinction. The key word here is "environment". Environment does impact genetic change, but almost always indirectly (weeding out the ineffective genotype/rewarding the more effective type). So with that in mind, I would postulate that humans have removed themselves from the environment that they have ceased to evolve. If the environment remains static, there is no need for adaptation, and diversity in the population goes to zilch. This is of course bad, because when there is a shift in environment (and because of how we live that shift will most likely be swift and dramatic, as opposed to the long and drawn-out time frame needed for evolutionary change), then humans will be left in the dust, as it were.
Now I'm absolutely talking theory here, with very little evidence to support my claim. It's mostly an exercise in thought - I was originally going to write about how bad California drivers are (again) but heard this story on the radio as I was coming home. Or better yet, what if humans began adapting to our current sheltered environment of plenty? Would we see a decrease in brain size or cerebral folding as we rely more and more on technology, a body more suited to metabolizing fat and artificial chemicals as we ruin the natural food supply, less muscle mass as we continue to use and abuse transportation systems? Whatever the answer, it's still an interesting and frightening idea with a whole lot of pride wrapped up in it - how come we, as a species, are exempt from the natural order? We have been living outside of the natural order for thousands of years, ever since we began creating unnecessary surpluses and warring against the environment rather than living within it. Ah, so. Time for homework.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Controlling the Present
Today I went questing for a new car. My old one actually still runs and runs well, but the insurance company has already laid their demon eyes on it and are trying to reclaim it quickly so they can cut me a wholly inadequate check and wash themselves of me. Well, screw them, I liked that car and don't have another one yet. So, I find myself traveling thirty miles south to the lovely town of Hemet, a place whose look matches exactly the quality of the name. Hemet follows in the great tradition of shitty places given equally shitty names, and I'm not sure which one determines the other. Were places like Gary, Indiana, Twiggs County, Georgia, or East St. Louis awful places to begin with, or did they mutate along the aesthetic lines of their names?
Hemet is, surprisingly, in the desert. It is just a poorer city than Riverside and cannot afford to import and steal as much water as we can, so the place is rather dryer, dustier, drabber (?), and other similar-meaning d-words. Despite being located in the blasted wasteland between two other blasted wastelands, Los Angeles and Arizona, people here (and I'm sure elsewhere) are crazy enough to insist on maintaining some sort of lawn. Despite the fact that the closest body of water is the Pacific Ocean, residents of this little burg have created gravel front yards, lined with fences. The classier homeowners in fact lay down Astro-Turf, complete with a brick-lined walkway to their front door. Some of you may have read that and thought it was a typo, or that you haven't had your bran muffin this morning and are hallucinating, so let me repeat that: Astro-Turf yards. With brick-lined walkways, to keep the plastic weeds out. Ten-to-one they actually landscape that shit with a Pop-Pop toy mower.
Why do these people insist the world must change to fit their needs? All around Riverside there are fountains and lush lawns, as if people are flaunting the water in the face of four billion years of geology. "Haha, desert!", they seem to say, "we're such opulent persons and such engineering geniuses that we pipe in water from hundreds of miles away just to gush it up in the air for no reason at all!" It reminds me of the opening scene in the novel Dune where the ruler of the desert planet pours out a glass of water onto the ground before a state dinner, displaying his elevation above the natural state of things.
Well bad news human beings! You are not exempt from the natural state of things (see Global Warming). Stop trying to terraform an already abundant planet. Any good argument of course must offer a solution, so mine is this: stop moving to the fucking desert. Who the fuck walks 100 miles in the scorching sun and plants his flag right next to an ocean of sand-blasted rock and a sun-bleached cow skull and says, "Let's put a city right here! And you know what, let's call it Riverside just to fuck with people!". So in protest I've decided to stop drinking water altogether and imbibe nothing but bottled spirits and beer. It's for your own good I'm doing this, you know.
I didn't buy the car.
Hemet is, surprisingly, in the desert. It is just a poorer city than Riverside and cannot afford to import and steal as much water as we can, so the place is rather dryer, dustier, drabber (?), and other similar-meaning d-words. Despite being located in the blasted wasteland between two other blasted wastelands, Los Angeles and Arizona, people here (and I'm sure elsewhere) are crazy enough to insist on maintaining some sort of lawn. Despite the fact that the closest body of water is the Pacific Ocean, residents of this little burg have created gravel front yards, lined with fences. The classier homeowners in fact lay down Astro-Turf, complete with a brick-lined walkway to their front door. Some of you may have read that and thought it was a typo, or that you haven't had your bran muffin this morning and are hallucinating, so let me repeat that: Astro-Turf yards. With brick-lined walkways, to keep the plastic weeds out. Ten-to-one they actually landscape that shit with a Pop-Pop toy mower.
Why do these people insist the world must change to fit their needs? All around Riverside there are fountains and lush lawns, as if people are flaunting the water in the face of four billion years of geology. "Haha, desert!", they seem to say, "we're such opulent persons and such engineering geniuses that we pipe in water from hundreds of miles away just to gush it up in the air for no reason at all!" It reminds me of the opening scene in the novel Dune where the ruler of the desert planet pours out a glass of water onto the ground before a state dinner, displaying his elevation above the natural state of things.
Well bad news human beings! You are not exempt from the natural state of things (see Global Warming). Stop trying to terraform an already abundant planet. Any good argument of course must offer a solution, so mine is this: stop moving to the fucking desert. Who the fuck walks 100 miles in the scorching sun and plants his flag right next to an ocean of sand-blasted rock and a sun-bleached cow skull and says, "Let's put a city right here! And you know what, let's call it Riverside just to fuck with people!". So in protest I've decided to stop drinking water altogether and imbibe nothing but bottled spirits and beer. It's for your own good I'm doing this, you know.
I didn't buy the car.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Education, then LONG rambling rant
Originally I was going to harp on about the No Child Left Behind and state of education in America today, but there's nothing new I can really say. It seems I missed the golden age of teaching, where the educator more or less ruled the classroom and taught whatever they deemed necessary for a proper education. Today, as no doubt everyone is at least peripherally aware, educators are handcuffed to a strict code of standards in the government's effort to make education uniform and identical in every classroom across the nation. One of my professors is also a high school English teacher, and even she has very little flexibility in what novels are taught in her classes. You would think a more liberal arts subject such as literature would have some leeway in what is taught - as long as it's appropriate, you can teach it, right? But she told me that she can only work in one or two novels of her choosing a year, and the rest is regimented by the school board/district/state/federal government.
(Note: please ignore opening sentence.)
The standardizing movement is doing more harm than good. This strict formalization of education across America is rooted in an educational philosophy termed "Essentialism", which is exactly what it sounds like: students should be taught the fundamentals in the basic subjects, such as Math, English, History, and Science. This philosophy pushes other pursuits such as Drama, Visual Arts, Physical Education, and Music to the very fringes of a curriculum. The reason the government is pushing this philosophy more intensely than before can be blamed on any number of causes: America's continual middling placement among global Math and Reading scores, President Bush's attempt at having something positive associated with his term in office, or a reaction and fail-safe against the overall lack of talent found in educators. No matter what the reason, it boils down to the homogenization of education in the nation, just like our housing, shopping, and culinary options have. This is to the detriment of our students and will further scare talented teachers away from the field of public education (as low salaries, little respect, and handicapping from parents and legal systems already do.)
(Now for something different.)
I haven't been able to write anything funny or make any jokes recently because for the past month or so I've been in a pretty bad place and it looks like it'll get worse before it gets better. I did finally get a job - in a restaurant that doesn't open until April 29th. The job market around here is so stagnant that the only job I could get was in a brand new restaurant 30 miles south of my apartment. Getting there will be a real hoot too, since my car was totaled last week by a fucking AAA driver who's so old his claim number was "00000-2" and by a gigantic Suburban driven by a tiny Hispanic woman. I'm sure I've mentioned that construction is rampant in these parts. Additionally, the interim roadways the geniuses at the CA DOT have provided are narrower and more dangerous than a badger's asshole.
Here's the skinny: the on-ramp at one of these improvised stunt tracks/heavily used roadways is about 150 feet long and simply meets the freeway at a 35-degree angle, with no merge lane whatsoever. Additionally, the shoulder is comprised of seven-foot tall concrete barriers sitting inches from the so-called on-ramp. Also additionally, the next exit from this on-ramp is a total clusterfuck where two highways and an interstate converge and diverge in the space of one-fifth of a mile. So anyway, I am proceeding down the on-ramp at typical merging speed: 45 mph. One especially wants to be up to speed because I said, there is no merging lane, you just have to get the fuck over at speed or slam your face into two feet of concrete.
So it's 10 am, past rush hour, traffic is medium heavy but moving at a good clip, with no stopping/starting. Tra la la, here I go, oh wait, what's this? Why is this gigantic Suburban 75 feet in front of me slowing down and stopping? One second goes by - at 50 mph that's 73 feet - and in that time I have to make a decision. I slam on my brakes while honking my horn, put on my left blinker and because I have so little room to stop and cannot pull to the shoulder on the right, must try and merge to the freeway. Unfortunately, the fucking dumb shit bitch has stopped her Suburban at the point where the on-ramp and the freeway meet, effectively blocking both lanes. I cannot merge without blindly throwing myself across two freeway lanes of heavy traffic. I have no choice but to try and screech to a halt. I do, inches from the Suburban. A late 1970's pure steel pickup truck slams into the back of me. My Honda, weighing all of 700 pounds with me inside, is launched forward under the Suburban's bumper. Damage done to the pick up: pretty bad. Damage done to the Honda: total loss. Damage done to the Suburban: none. NONE. In fact, she almost drove off, I wrote down her plate while honking to get that dumb bitch to pull over. So what is her excuse for stopping the Suburban on a freeway on-ramp/lane of traffic in a construction zone with no shoulder and heavy traffic??? Could it be something legitimate like her car died or the transmission exploded or she had just seen a vision of God in her tortilla who told her to stop the car so He could start the Rapture? Nope! It's so bad, I swear I almost pushed her into traffic. I almost murdered this woman. And you think I'm going to say she was on her cell phone, right? Well guess again, it's even better than that. Ready?
THE BABY WAS CRYING AND SHE WAS NERVOUS.
Oh, oh no! The baby was crying at you! Well by all means please go ahead and continue acting like you're the only creature here on this Earth and tend to whatever little need right away! Never mind that you're driving a behemoth of an automobile, or that you're so small you probably need a two fucking L.A. phonebooks just to see out the windshield, or that you're trying to merge onto one of the busiest freeways in Riverside while the entire thing is under construction! No! No no no, please, don't let any of that bother you. You were nervous? THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING DRIVING A TWO-TON, TWENTY-FIVE FOOT ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION?!? If you're so incapable, incompetent, so below normal functioning then what the fuck are you doing outside of your cage, let alone reproducing, let alone being allowed to operate a motor vehicle when you should be locked up in a cosmetics factory and have oven cleaner shot into your eyeballs while bunnies and puppies that would normally take that punishment be allowed to run free, where even if all they do in their short lives is fuck and shit, they will have accomplished so much more than you ever will, you damn worthless monkey!
.........Whew. Sorry. That's a lot of frustration coming out at once, and not just about the car. The car is a total loss, I'll get about $1200 from insurance. So I've got to find a new car, and quick, because starting next Monday I need to be at Corona HS every morning for six weeks. There's also a whole host of other shit going on right now, but I'm so angry after retelling the car wreck that I need a break, and besides who the fuck wants to listen to me complain. I would really enjoy a nice hot shower right now, but oh wait, guess what? Not only have we not had hot water since January, but we haven't had running water at all today. How about a shower and a shit? No sir! Can't flush, can't wash, can't drink, can't brush your teeth. Hoo-ray for today.
(Note: please ignore opening sentence.)
The standardizing movement is doing more harm than good. This strict formalization of education across America is rooted in an educational philosophy termed "Essentialism", which is exactly what it sounds like: students should be taught the fundamentals in the basic subjects, such as Math, English, History, and Science. This philosophy pushes other pursuits such as Drama, Visual Arts, Physical Education, and Music to the very fringes of a curriculum. The reason the government is pushing this philosophy more intensely than before can be blamed on any number of causes: America's continual middling placement among global Math and Reading scores, President Bush's attempt at having something positive associated with his term in office, or a reaction and fail-safe against the overall lack of talent found in educators. No matter what the reason, it boils down to the homogenization of education in the nation, just like our housing, shopping, and culinary options have. This is to the detriment of our students and will further scare talented teachers away from the field of public education (as low salaries, little respect, and handicapping from parents and legal systems already do.)
(Now for something different.)
I haven't been able to write anything funny or make any jokes recently because for the past month or so I've been in a pretty bad place and it looks like it'll get worse before it gets better. I did finally get a job - in a restaurant that doesn't open until April 29th. The job market around here is so stagnant that the only job I could get was in a brand new restaurant 30 miles south of my apartment. Getting there will be a real hoot too, since my car was totaled last week by a fucking AAA driver who's so old his claim number was "00000-2" and by a gigantic Suburban driven by a tiny Hispanic woman. I'm sure I've mentioned that construction is rampant in these parts. Additionally, the interim roadways the geniuses at the CA DOT have provided are narrower and more dangerous than a badger's asshole.
Here's the skinny: the on-ramp at one of these improvised stunt tracks/heavily used roadways is about 150 feet long and simply meets the freeway at a 35-degree angle, with no merge lane whatsoever. Additionally, the shoulder is comprised of seven-foot tall concrete barriers sitting inches from the so-called on-ramp. Also additionally, the next exit from this on-ramp is a total clusterfuck where two highways and an interstate converge and diverge in the space of one-fifth of a mile. So anyway, I am proceeding down the on-ramp at typical merging speed: 45 mph. One especially wants to be up to speed because I said, there is no merging lane, you just have to get the fuck over at speed or slam your face into two feet of concrete.
So it's 10 am, past rush hour, traffic is medium heavy but moving at a good clip, with no stopping/starting. Tra la la, here I go, oh wait, what's this? Why is this gigantic Suburban 75 feet in front of me slowing down and stopping? One second goes by - at 50 mph that's 73 feet - and in that time I have to make a decision. I slam on my brakes while honking my horn, put on my left blinker and because I have so little room to stop and cannot pull to the shoulder on the right, must try and merge to the freeway. Unfortunately, the fucking dumb shit bitch has stopped her Suburban at the point where the on-ramp and the freeway meet, effectively blocking both lanes. I cannot merge without blindly throwing myself across two freeway lanes of heavy traffic. I have no choice but to try and screech to a halt. I do, inches from the Suburban. A late 1970's pure steel pickup truck slams into the back of me. My Honda, weighing all of 700 pounds with me inside, is launched forward under the Suburban's bumper. Damage done to the pick up: pretty bad. Damage done to the Honda: total loss. Damage done to the Suburban: none. NONE. In fact, she almost drove off, I wrote down her plate while honking to get that dumb bitch to pull over. So what is her excuse for stopping the Suburban on a freeway on-ramp/lane of traffic in a construction zone with no shoulder and heavy traffic??? Could it be something legitimate like her car died or the transmission exploded or she had just seen a vision of God in her tortilla who told her to stop the car so He could start the Rapture? Nope! It's so bad, I swear I almost pushed her into traffic. I almost murdered this woman. And you think I'm going to say she was on her cell phone, right? Well guess again, it's even better than that. Ready?
THE BABY WAS CRYING AND SHE WAS NERVOUS.
Oh, oh no! The baby was crying at you! Well by all means please go ahead and continue acting like you're the only creature here on this Earth and tend to whatever little need right away! Never mind that you're driving a behemoth of an automobile, or that you're so small you probably need a two fucking L.A. phonebooks just to see out the windshield, or that you're trying to merge onto one of the busiest freeways in Riverside while the entire thing is under construction! No! No no no, please, don't let any of that bother you. You were nervous? THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING DRIVING A TWO-TON, TWENTY-FIVE FOOT ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION?!? If you're so incapable, incompetent, so below normal functioning then what the fuck are you doing outside of your cage, let alone reproducing, let alone being allowed to operate a motor vehicle when you should be locked up in a cosmetics factory and have oven cleaner shot into your eyeballs while bunnies and puppies that would normally take that punishment be allowed to run free, where even if all they do in their short lives is fuck and shit, they will have accomplished so much more than you ever will, you damn worthless monkey!
.........Whew. Sorry. That's a lot of frustration coming out at once, and not just about the car. The car is a total loss, I'll get about $1200 from insurance. So I've got to find a new car, and quick, because starting next Monday I need to be at Corona HS every morning for six weeks. There's also a whole host of other shit going on right now, but I'm so angry after retelling the car wreck that I need a break, and besides who the fuck wants to listen to me complain. I would really enjoy a nice hot shower right now, but oh wait, guess what? Not only have we not had hot water since January, but we haven't had running water at all today. How about a shower and a shit? No sir! Can't flush, can't wash, can't drink, can't brush your teeth. Hoo-ray for today.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
AMERICA!
There are too many things I could write about today, so I'm going to try and spread it out over the next few days so it looks like I'm coming up with a lot of fresh ideas in a short time span.
Someone needs to turn off America's expansion engine. We are rushing construction projects and continuously building as if we still had a frontier. Bad news guys - we ran out of new land some sixty years ago (note: I am not including recent foreign conquests, because it is pretty clear we're not planning on building anything there at all - except this). Yet we continue to expand throughout the countryside with no regard for civic planning or even actual need. Everywhere I look there are half-finished construction projects spilling over into giant, empty lots with dozens of dusty parking spaces and "Office Space for Lease" signs in every window. Companies are treating the already stressed landscape like a contract crapshoot, just building blocks and blocks of office or retail space that no one requested. These vacant shells wait scornfully for tenants, unapologetic in their uselessness.
To be fair, rapid expansion and construction provides countless jobs and generates tons of money for the economy. Businesses have access to more affordable space, which in turns (ideally) translates to lower prices for consumers. Standardized home construction provides cheaper living space for our growing population. However, as much as I would like to believe that the driving force behind our constant expansion is to create a better society, I can say with certainty that a vast majority of these construction projects do not stem from some altruistic notion but rather for that almighty Dollar. I'm not here to rail on capitalism, which I'm all for, but rather to point out that because construction is so profitable it is that much more resistant to change. Why fix it if it's not broken?
I would like to see the huge economy of construction distilled out into a multitude of smaller economies. I would like to see many local companies that only concern themselves with building in single states (maybe three or four for you tiny statettes in the northeast). I would to like to see the rampant expansion reigned in, to quit building just for the sake of it and refocus that engine inward toward building a local community.
I'm ending this one now because I'm about to shoot off on a completely different tangent, along the lines of the update I wrote called "Countrified Counterculture", which I'll be rehashing and refreshing in a few days. For tomorrow, a comedic update about one of my favorite topics: education!
Someone needs to turn off America's expansion engine. We are rushing construction projects and continuously building as if we still had a frontier. Bad news guys - we ran out of new land some sixty years ago (note: I am not including recent foreign conquests, because it is pretty clear we're not planning on building anything there at all - except this). Yet we continue to expand throughout the countryside with no regard for civic planning or even actual need. Everywhere I look there are half-finished construction projects spilling over into giant, empty lots with dozens of dusty parking spaces and "Office Space for Lease" signs in every window. Companies are treating the already stressed landscape like a contract crapshoot, just building blocks and blocks of office or retail space that no one requested. These vacant shells wait scornfully for tenants, unapologetic in their uselessness.
To be fair, rapid expansion and construction provides countless jobs and generates tons of money for the economy. Businesses have access to more affordable space, which in turns (ideally) translates to lower prices for consumers. Standardized home construction provides cheaper living space for our growing population. However, as much as I would like to believe that the driving force behind our constant expansion is to create a better society, I can say with certainty that a vast majority of these construction projects do not stem from some altruistic notion but rather for that almighty Dollar. I'm not here to rail on capitalism, which I'm all for, but rather to point out that because construction is so profitable it is that much more resistant to change. Why fix it if it's not broken?
I would like to see the huge economy of construction distilled out into a multitude of smaller economies. I would like to see many local companies that only concern themselves with building in single states (maybe three or four for you tiny statettes in the northeast). I would to like to see the rampant expansion reigned in, to quit building just for the sake of it and refocus that engine inward toward building a local community.
I'm ending this one now because I'm about to shoot off on a completely different tangent, along the lines of the update I wrote called "Countrified Counterculture", which I'll be rehashing and refreshing in a few days. For tomorrow, a comedic update about one of my favorite topics: education!
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