Haiku – On Rare Events
warm – soft vegetation
through the ground cover – a mushroom
earth quakes – excitement
~Theodore Maestranzi
Read MoreThe Twelve Brothers
“And now a great fire was lighted in the courtyard in which she was to be burnt, and the King stood above at the window and looked on with tearful eyes, because he still loved her so much. And when she was bound fast so the stake, and the fire was licking at her clothes with its red tongue, the last instant of the seven years expired. Then a whirring sound was heard in the air, and twelve ravens came flying towards the place, and sank downwards, and when they touched the earth they were her twelve brothers, whom she had saved. They tore the fire asunder, extinguished the flames, set their dear sister free, and kissed and embraced her. And now as she dared to open her mouth and speak, she told the King why she had been dumb, and had never laughed. The King rejoiced when he heard that she was innocent, and they all lived in great unity until their death. The wicked stepmother was taken before the judge, and put into a barrel filled with boiling, oil and venomous snakes, and died an evil death.
~Brothers Grimm
I’ve noticed an ongoing theme and I believe it will continue throughout many of these fables – blood is thicker than water. Those who are family by blood are trustworthy. Perhaps, the trope with the stepmother being a villain began at this point, maybe, it was forged into our societies collective consciousness by this single short story. For, this entire short story you see the brothers and their sister work together to survive and make sacrifices for one another – their love is pure and based on an invisible bond (even the quote above calls this out: “The King rejoiced when he heard that she was innocent.” because she could have talked at any point and saved herself by dooming her brothers). Even though the king married her out of love decided to kill her at the stepmother’s behest (not sure if the stepmother is the king’s mom or not, but if she is, then the king chose blood over love). In the end, she gets her comeuppance (see the last line of the quote above). But, while this over arching theme/moral is great, I need to analyze it from a hero/villain moral standpoint. [Click “Read More” to see the more detailed analysis]
Read MoreIt’s All Natural – Arsenic
If you have stuck around this long, you obviously know my feelings towards business and marketing terms. So, if you are surprised here – that’s on you. There are laws in place to protect a consumer from being taken advantage by false advertising. But there are various ways to avoid breeching those laws… like creating a product called: “REAL CHEESE!”. Now if you are super sneaky, you can call the new product (created from pure chemicals and formulated in a lab) “NATURAL REAL CHEESE!”. As a product, and having it trademarked, you can do whatever you want with the term. Derived from soy beans and decomposing plant farts, doesn’t matter, the product is still “NATURAL REAL CHEESE!” and it can be sold as vegan! Imagine that, a cheese product that is vegan. Then there is the vegetarian option: “NATURAL REAL CHEESE!!” that is made from human farts, soy beans, and goat urine – yummmmmy!
My point is quite simple, though I meandered from my original topic, and that is anything can be called natural. In the above case, I can use law to generate an appealing product by naming it one thing even if it is creating from human shit. By creating a legal name for the product, I force you to only look at the surface level and see: real cheese. Not only that, I throw in natural to make you think that it was derived from a natural process like fermentation. This isn’t the case, the process is manufacturing, but the ingredients are natural.
However, the clear issue is the concept of natural. Everything is natural. But I can promise you would have certain feelings to the difference between a strawberry from the side of a mountain versus one grown in a test tube – yet both are natural (since atoms/elements/quarks are all natural).
Read MoreHard Determinism and Ethics
Apparently, I decided to write a single philosophical piece about a meme (The Stars and Planets Will Affect Your Life in Some Way) and it snowballed into a bunch of smaller pieces to explain certain pieces that I discussed in the aforementioned piece. For example, I discuss how planets will affect your life in many ways based on quantum mechanics. Before I get into the ethical issues for hard determinism, I figured we should go through a primer on quantum mechanics and how you have zero free will but perceive that you have free will. This is the same type of argument one would discuss if someone believed God was all knowing, all powerful, and all moral; God knows everything so nothing you do is a surprise to God, so you don’t have freewill, it is all pre-determined, but you don’t know that so you don’t realize you lack free will and instead perceive that you are free. (I got wordy, so I added a [Read More] link so you can choose to continue reading or not)
Read MoreThe Wonderful Musician
“Oh, musician,” replied the little hare, “I will obey you as a scholar obeys his master.” They went a part of the way together until they came to an open space in the forest, where stood an aspen tree. The musician tied a long string round the little hare’s neck, the other end of which he fastened to the tree.
“Now briskly, little hare, run twenty times around the tree!” cried the musician, and the little hare obeyed, and when it had run around twenty times, it had twisted the string twenty times around the trunk of the tree, and the little hare was caught, and let it pull and tug as it liked, it only made the string cut into its tender neck. “Wait there till I come back, ” said the musician and went onwards.
~Brothers Grimm
Fuck the musician. This piece of shit is a total asshole who took advantage of the woodland creatures because of his laziness. Listen to this shit: “‘Why, a hare is coming,’ said the musician, ‘I do not want him.'” Three animals appeared and wanted help (wolf, fox, and finally, the hare) learning the fiddle. Something the musician wanted to teach, but him being a bigoted asshole, he only wanted to teach humans. Now, I know I am reading this shit from the perspective of our current time, but I can only imagine that the original moral here was: don’t play with wild creatures, you have no idea what they want (since wolves and foxes probably killed kids often). But reading it now, I have gotten a whole new moral analysis. [Click “Read More” for my modern take]
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