Before I officially start this post, I would like it to be known that this lecture actually made me really hungry for a burger. Not even just one burger, but two. Gurgling stomach and everything, I was just about ready to go to Wendy's and curb my craving, but I went back to my dorm and ate nearly a pint of ice cream instead. Be proud.
At any rate, Eric Schlosser's lecture; well, he actually did a good job of telling me why what he said really was not ground breaking to my ears. Because he published this book way back in 2000! And then everyone was raving about the video Food, Inc. It was pretty hard to escape the gist of what the video and book covered, so this lecture was more like hearing the same old song and dance.
And as a result, I will continue to eat meat. It didn't even really change my view of the fast food industry because, for one, I worked in it (Dairy Queen food sucks too, even if it wasn't in his list!) and two, I hated McDonalds even all through my childhood years. The most money McDonalds has gotten from me are its smoothies, which are pretty good. And I have bought a grand total of two of those. They are making a killing off of me!
I suppose educating the general public about the health concerns that can arise particularly in young kids is a good way to start, but a lot of it still falls back on the family's habits. My family continues the tradition of making balanced home-cooked meals because while fast food is inexpensive, it can still drain your wallet pretty fast, and, also, it's much healthier for you. Mom and dads who work all day usually never have the energy to actually worry about making a better meal and the effort to stop this obesity should be at the center of supplying cheap and healthy fast food. (And when I mean "fast food" there, I don't mean at a fast food restaurant. I mean something quick that you can buy at the store)
Or you could simply make everyone work in the fast food industry for at least a month, and if that doesn't effect their eating habits, then nothing will.
And how about the animal cruelty? I really do not know much about it and I am certainly not going to take one guy at face value to believe that all of it is true. Considering how massive slaughter houses are, it's certainly difficult to argue that there wouldn't be violations, but I can also at least say that it would undoubtedly not be FDA approved.
Does that make it any better? Sadly, probably not, but those meat industries aside, pretty much everyone agrees that all animals should be treated humanely. Yet, considering how expansive these industries are, it would be difficult to boycott them unless you go completely vegetarian and, sorry folks, but I like my meat.
The rest of the lecture, particularly covering the fastfood industries boundless greed, can all be explained away by the capitalist system. I'm sure some people could draw up some lengthy arguments against such a system, but I once heard a friend of mine say something that I shall paraphrase; "I do not think this regulated capitalism is perfect, but I support it because it's the best system we have to provide the greatest quality of life and comfort to the most people, due to its endless pursuit of innovation."
GoldBug
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Owls and Herons
Both are quite stunning and beautiful birds. I often see a Great Blue Heron swooping in and plucking fish out of the pond at the golf course by our house. The very picture of majesty. An owl, however, is quite a bit more elusive. I have only ever seen an owl in captivity and yet there have been times when I have sat in my old basement and heard its soft purring cry in the night. So soft and even comfortable, yet much like a cat it has deadly purpose despite all its cuddliness.
(And now I will shamelessly promote the movie Legend of the Guardian, which just came out last Friday. Absolutely incredible. Go watch!)
Philip K. Dick's character in the exerpt 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and I both share the same reverence and protectiveness of the owl. A rare creature even before they were supposedly extinct in this story, Dick's characters finds himself against incredible odds to try and find an owl to eventually possess since it has become an almost priceless creature in this alternative universe. He shares many of the same sentiments with Sylvie, the heroine in 'A White Heron.'
Sylvie, so familiar with the feathery denizens of the forest, likes the wealthy young man on the search for the white heron, but is dismayed at how he constantly ceases the music of the song birds with his gun. She is fully aware of the consequences of telling him where the white bird may be found, but it also piques her curiosity and in the early morning with nothing else stirs, she climbs the giant pine that can show the area for miles and miles.
Suddenly she can see from the birds-eye view and where she saw hawks as merely silhouettes against the sky, no she sees their brown and cream patch of feathers and their broad, powerful wings as they soar above the ground. And amidst the hawks she sees the White Heron.
Though 'The White Heron' was written in the late 19th century (1886), Sylvie had already learned how to value the wildlife around her, even with $10 testing her decision. She and her -grandmother are stated to be poor and $10 was a lot of money - and for the location of a bird nonetheless - but she found that in spite of that, it's life was of far more import than even $10 could buy. And, although there is only one White Heron apparently in the district, it is certainly not the last White Heron alive. Sylvie is surrounded by an abundance of life and green leaves.
It takes the apocalypse in Philip K. Dick's story for people and corporations to understand the value of the wildlife. Businesses start private collections of some of the most inane animals - inane to us, at the very least - and an animal like an owl is soon considered one of the most valuable and priceless on the planet.
- All right, a side note: If the apocalypse has happened and all the animals that are so familiar to us now are just about all dead, then how in the world are any humans alive? I'm assuming if most of these animals are dead then the plant life is pretty scarce too and we get our oxygen from plants. At any rate, the ecosystems have collapsed and the world is, thus, barren. So how do the humans breath? Did technology save them? Can they somehow turn Carbon to Oxygen and make a continuous recycling of the air? Where do they get their nutrients? Fake plants and meat? Well, other worlds were mentioned, so perhaps technology did save us in teh end and instead of all life being extinct it could just be that the life we know it is mostly extinct and new life forms have since developed. I guess I'd have to read the book to find out. -
Given the chance, would the character in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" do his best to protect the animals of the Earth before the nuclear warfare? I do not know the whole story, but I am merely assuming that this poor man simply was not alive before or was too young when the nuclear holocaust began. Or it could simply be that he did not care until it was almost gone.
And so Big Yellow Taxi goes:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'til it's gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot"
-Joni Mitchell, American Earth, pg 490
(And now I will shamelessly promote the movie Legend of the Guardian, which just came out last Friday. Absolutely incredible. Go watch!)
Philip K. Dick's character in the exerpt 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and I both share the same reverence and protectiveness of the owl. A rare creature even before they were supposedly extinct in this story, Dick's characters finds himself against incredible odds to try and find an owl to eventually possess since it has become an almost priceless creature in this alternative universe. He shares many of the same sentiments with Sylvie, the heroine in 'A White Heron.'
Sylvie, so familiar with the feathery denizens of the forest, likes the wealthy young man on the search for the white heron, but is dismayed at how he constantly ceases the music of the song birds with his gun. She is fully aware of the consequences of telling him where the white bird may be found, but it also piques her curiosity and in the early morning with nothing else stirs, she climbs the giant pine that can show the area for miles and miles.
Suddenly she can see from the birds-eye view and where she saw hawks as merely silhouettes against the sky, no she sees their brown and cream patch of feathers and their broad, powerful wings as they soar above the ground. And amidst the hawks she sees the White Heron.
Though 'The White Heron' was written in the late 19th century (1886), Sylvie had already learned how to value the wildlife around her, even with $10 testing her decision. She and her -grandmother are stated to be poor and $10 was a lot of money - and for the location of a bird nonetheless - but she found that in spite of that, it's life was of far more import than even $10 could buy. And, although there is only one White Heron apparently in the district, it is certainly not the last White Heron alive. Sylvie is surrounded by an abundance of life and green leaves.
It takes the apocalypse in Philip K. Dick's story for people and corporations to understand the value of the wildlife. Businesses start private collections of some of the most inane animals - inane to us, at the very least - and an animal like an owl is soon considered one of the most valuable and priceless on the planet.
- All right, a side note: If the apocalypse has happened and all the animals that are so familiar to us now are just about all dead, then how in the world are any humans alive? I'm assuming if most of these animals are dead then the plant life is pretty scarce too and we get our oxygen from plants. At any rate, the ecosystems have collapsed and the world is, thus, barren. So how do the humans breath? Did technology save them? Can they somehow turn Carbon to Oxygen and make a continuous recycling of the air? Where do they get their nutrients? Fake plants and meat? Well, other worlds were mentioned, so perhaps technology did save us in teh end and instead of all life being extinct it could just be that the life we know it is mostly extinct and new life forms have since developed. I guess I'd have to read the book to find out. -
Given the chance, would the character in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" do his best to protect the animals of the Earth before the nuclear warfare? I do not know the whole story, but I am merely assuming that this poor man simply was not alive before or was too young when the nuclear holocaust began. Or it could simply be that he did not care until it was almost gone.
And so Big Yellow Taxi goes:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'til it's gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot"
-Joni Mitchell, American Earth, pg 490
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Cronon and Thoreau
Admittedly, at the time that I am writing this first paragraph, I am less than halfway through the reading on page 8, but in the danger of losing some of my early thoughts, I figured I would write as I read.
I do not understand the point Cronon is trying to get at. All right so, as I stated previously, I am less than halfway through the text but even so, I should already have a sense of what point he's trying to make and it's lost on me. So far, what he's saying is that the Wilderness did not used to be a tourist destination so...we should stop treating it like one? He hasn't really said just what exactly we should change about our approach to nature, only that it was usually used as a place of both spiritual conflict and renewal.
I don't even think the Wordsworth poem and the Thoreau passage he cited can possibly contribute to his argument because those are mountains. Yes, that is the Wilderness, but how many tourists actually make a habit of traversing mountains like Thoreau and Walden have? Not many. Most people, like John Muir - whom he is now citing - go to the forest and that is where most tourists find the awe and beauty. They can very likely see mountains or rocky hills in the distance but they are a healthy distance. Unless roads actually lead to the top, few people actually care to go beyond the forest.
(On Page 11). If Cronon wants pristine, truly untouched "Wilderness" he needs to watch Planet Earth, caves addition and see the segment on Leiturgia. Granted he could argue that it cannot be pristine since humans have wandered there, but after the BBC went down there to film their segment the cave was closed off to anymore human visitors. And the cave was only discovered in, I believe, 1988. So, it was open to likely the most seasoned cave explorers for 17 years before being closed off. I'm not sure you could get more pristine than that.
I have a feeling that if Thoreau could read Cronon today, his response - while not biting - would very likely seek to change just why people are attracted to "Wilderness." There is no denying that people are attracted to the Wilderness for escapism and possibly as an erasure to the past, but human civilization has always been volatile and viscous. There is, without a doubt, other reasons people seek the tranquility of the Wilderness.
Thoreau, based on his writings, sought out the Wilderness to, to a degree, be closer to God. He did in fact feel a spirituality in the land that he could not find in a church, considering his obvious disdain for organized religion. He also made a point of showing the simplicity of his life from living in the Wilderness, something that Cronon argues is part of this romantic view of Wilderness. BUT the systematic erasure of the past of the Indians is something I sincerely doubt most people thought of when taking a walk through the woods. Or at least that they fully supported and wanted the systematic erasure of the American past.
This is where I believe Cronon and Thoreau would in fact diverge on their ideas of Wilderness. Thoreau's time was much different to the comparatively modern Cronon and many people in the 1800s still had to work the land for their food. Maybe not everybody, but that is as a result of capitalism - specialization. Thoreau did try to live the land, by building his own house and trying to live in isolation. (Too bad he was just 2 miles out of town, or he would have a stronger case.)
Suffice it to say, there are people who have attempted to live out in the wilderness, hunting and making their own food even in this technologically advanced, modern world. But then...why criticize people for wishing to preserve nature simply because they have never had to work it? Is not retaining the Earth, whether we consider it pristine or not, enough to want to protect it to the best of our abilities?
Ah, I see, you're arguing that people need to let go of their foolhardy romantic notions so as to better preserve nature. Or so that it can be better preserved. Thoreau might argue that, in comparison to how people felt about the "Wilderness" back then, even today's romanticism is preferable than the uncaring desolation and consumption of the Earth's resources that pervaded society back then and certainly still to this day. Because, despite all that silly romanticism, the vast majority of Western Civilization still lives in suburbia and the cities.
Now the article has tailed off to bemoan the radical aspects of Environmentalism where people hold this fatalistic view that all humans should die in order to do the Earth no further harm. As much as a hindrance to environmentalism as the Tea Party is to politics right now, the moderates still make up the majority of the people and they will speak up before anything truly insane, like serving a poisonous Kool-Aid, will happen.
So, instead of being of the Earth-First crowd, Cronon is arguing more for the People-First crowd. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but the two should go hand in hand because without the environment, we cannot live. The only problem with both of these views is that human kind is so vast and, as aforementioned, volatile and viscous that we will never collaborate as a whole to save both people and the Earth. It will forever be touch and go. Certain people will be saved, but that anticipates the suffering of certain other people. Just as some areas of the world will be saved, while other areas are consumed in the name of progress and industrialization.
All in all, Cronon seems to be arguing against human nature. Which human nature is, in and of itself, hypocritical.
I do not understand the point Cronon is trying to get at. All right so, as I stated previously, I am less than halfway through the text but even so, I should already have a sense of what point he's trying to make and it's lost on me. So far, what he's saying is that the Wilderness did not used to be a tourist destination so...we should stop treating it like one? He hasn't really said just what exactly we should change about our approach to nature, only that it was usually used as a place of both spiritual conflict and renewal.
I don't even think the Wordsworth poem and the Thoreau passage he cited can possibly contribute to his argument because those are mountains. Yes, that is the Wilderness, but how many tourists actually make a habit of traversing mountains like Thoreau and Walden have? Not many. Most people, like John Muir - whom he is now citing - go to the forest and that is where most tourists find the awe and beauty. They can very likely see mountains or rocky hills in the distance but they are a healthy distance. Unless roads actually lead to the top, few people actually care to go beyond the forest.
(On Page 11). If Cronon wants pristine, truly untouched "Wilderness" he needs to watch Planet Earth, caves addition and see the segment on Leiturgia. Granted he could argue that it cannot be pristine since humans have wandered there, but after the BBC went down there to film their segment the cave was closed off to anymore human visitors. And the cave was only discovered in, I believe, 1988. So, it was open to likely the most seasoned cave explorers for 17 years before being closed off. I'm not sure you could get more pristine than that.
I have a feeling that if Thoreau could read Cronon today, his response - while not biting - would very likely seek to change just why people are attracted to "Wilderness." There is no denying that people are attracted to the Wilderness for escapism and possibly as an erasure to the past, but human civilization has always been volatile and viscous. There is, without a doubt, other reasons people seek the tranquility of the Wilderness.
Thoreau, based on his writings, sought out the Wilderness to, to a degree, be closer to God. He did in fact feel a spirituality in the land that he could not find in a church, considering his obvious disdain for organized religion. He also made a point of showing the simplicity of his life from living in the Wilderness, something that Cronon argues is part of this romantic view of Wilderness. BUT the systematic erasure of the past of the Indians is something I sincerely doubt most people thought of when taking a walk through the woods. Or at least that they fully supported and wanted the systematic erasure of the American past.
This is where I believe Cronon and Thoreau would in fact diverge on their ideas of Wilderness. Thoreau's time was much different to the comparatively modern Cronon and many people in the 1800s still had to work the land for their food. Maybe not everybody, but that is as a result of capitalism - specialization. Thoreau did try to live the land, by building his own house and trying to live in isolation. (Too bad he was just 2 miles out of town, or he would have a stronger case.)
Suffice it to say, there are people who have attempted to live out in the wilderness, hunting and making their own food even in this technologically advanced, modern world. But then...why criticize people for wishing to preserve nature simply because they have never had to work it? Is not retaining the Earth, whether we consider it pristine or not, enough to want to protect it to the best of our abilities?
Ah, I see, you're arguing that people need to let go of their foolhardy romantic notions so as to better preserve nature. Or so that it can be better preserved. Thoreau might argue that, in comparison to how people felt about the "Wilderness" back then, even today's romanticism is preferable than the uncaring desolation and consumption of the Earth's resources that pervaded society back then and certainly still to this day. Because, despite all that silly romanticism, the vast majority of Western Civilization still lives in suburbia and the cities.
Now the article has tailed off to bemoan the radical aspects of Environmentalism where people hold this fatalistic view that all humans should die in order to do the Earth no further harm. As much as a hindrance to environmentalism as the Tea Party is to politics right now, the moderates still make up the majority of the people and they will speak up before anything truly insane, like serving a poisonous Kool-Aid, will happen.
So, instead of being of the Earth-First crowd, Cronon is arguing more for the People-First crowd. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but the two should go hand in hand because without the environment, we cannot live. The only problem with both of these views is that human kind is so vast and, as aforementioned, volatile and viscous that we will never collaborate as a whole to save both people and the Earth. It will forever be touch and go. Certain people will be saved, but that anticipates the suffering of certain other people. Just as some areas of the world will be saved, while other areas are consumed in the name of progress and industrialization.
All in all, Cronon seems to be arguing against human nature. Which human nature is, in and of itself, hypocritical.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Introduction
My name is Kristen Ohlemeier and I am a Digital Media major with a minor in English. Digital Media is a sub-school of the Scripps College of Communication which trains us in some of the most expensive and difficult software in the entertainment industry: Maya and the Adobe collection. Maya is a 3D modeling software to create virtually any 3D object and place it in a movie or video game, like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, every single object in a Pixar film, or objects in video games.
I am personally pursuing an interest to make narrative-driven video games. Most of my favorite video games usually had an excellent story and those video games are: Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Prince of Persia (2008), Assassin's Creed II(one of the few where the story didn't matter), Portal, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, and Metal Gear Solid.
Interesting facts:
-I hate the taste of mint. Doesn't matter what it comes in - gum, toothpaste, chocolate - I hate it.
-I have written four novels, none of which are published or will likely come close to being published.
-I love cats.
I am personally pursuing an interest to make narrative-driven video games. Most of my favorite video games usually had an excellent story and those video games are: Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Prince of Persia (2008), Assassin's Creed II(one of the few where the story didn't matter), Portal, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, and Metal Gear Solid.
Interesting facts:
-I hate the taste of mint. Doesn't matter what it comes in - gum, toothpaste, chocolate - I hate it.
-I have written four novels, none of which are published or will likely come close to being published.
-I love cats.
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