Beauty

There is a difference between beauty and attractiveness. That's a shocking thought for some people, because they see pretty and attractive and sexy as being beautiful. Not so.

I'm not going to make a list, nor am I going to discuss what the differences are, really. I just think it behooves us all to examine our own standards. Because if you think everyone who is attractive is also beautiful, you might be terribly shallow, or you might be terribly over-eager.

Of course, people aren't the only things which are attractive. There are perfectly functional objects (no, not that kind of object, you perverts) which are attractive to the eye. Designers strive for that attractiveness; very few designs are for beauty, really. They may tell you differently, but what you're looking for in a design is attractiveness.

Attractiveness is candy to the eye. You never say something is horrifyingly attractive, yet there are many things which, for want of better words as humans don't really have them, are terrifyingly beautiful. Beauty can be painful, or cold, or unattainable. Attractiveness is just good-looking.

I think a certain amount of trouble with interpersonal relationships could be solved if we just acknowledge the difference between someone good-looking and someone beautiful. I don't mind looking at attractive people, but that doesn't mean I find them beautiful. Attractive is just that; it attracts you, or your eye, or your nose, or whatever sense. There are no tales of spirits so attractive that men go blind to look at them.

But there are confusions. Are sirens (the mythical singers who lure sailors to their dooms) attractive or beautiful? I would be inclined to go with the former. Are things which are seductively beautiful really beautiful, or just attractive? I guess it really is in the eye of the beholder.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't think too many things are really beautiful. Most things just look good. Maybe that's enough for some people.

Gwobu Wabu

There is nothing so fine as a multi-layered reference. I will leave it up to you to figure out what multiple layers I'm referencing. But will it help for me to say that this is actually about Global Warming? I thought not.

It seems to me that we're all fighting about the wrong thing, at least as far as global warming is concerned. Since we fight about the wrong thing a lot, this should come as no surprise to anyone. But let me demonstrate my point.

For instance, suppose Earth, instead of getting warmer, was getting cooler. Lest you think this is a science-fiction scenario, remember that it's happened in the past (more frequently than global warming, at any rate) including in the past of the human species. There was a miniature ice age a few hundred years back. So suppose it was happening again.

We'd probably all fight about whether or not it was being caused by pollution. And since people seem happier when it's warmer, there would probably be a lot more people opposed to global cooling. But it would be bad; crops would fail, ports would freeze, and heating bills would go through the roof. And there we would be, sitting around fighting about what was causing it.

Or maybe, just maybe, if we thought it was really a natural phenomenon, we might try to think of ways to combat it, regardless of its causes. If it seemed like burning oil in bonfires throughout the world would make the world heat up again and save us from an ice age, we might do that. Certainly we would try our best to work against destruction, instead of sitting around debating causality. The fact that it was "natural" wouldn't make it any less dangerous. Asteroids and comets collide with Earth every once in a while, "naturally." That doesn't make them any more livable.

I'm not going to get into an argument with people who don't believe that Earth is heating up, because, quite frankly, they are morons. They also aren't fighting about causality; they don't believe there's any effect, which rules out a cause right off. But everyone else who is sitting around drafting resolutions about human causes or natural causes, to them I say, stop talking.

We need to worry about global warming whether or not it is entirely out of our hands (and I don't believe for a second that it is). If we can have huge amounts of money spent on developing plans for when a comet hits Earth, why can't we spend some money to work out how to stop global warming?

The problem, of course, is that people who think it's all "natural," don't believe that reducing pollution will affect it at all, which is why we need to argue. And unlike a comet, getting people to stop polluting has no immediate onrushing doom attached. It's quite possible that we can go on exactly as we are for quite some time before we completely destroy Earth, but it's going to get awfully unpleasant between now and doom.

Me, I like the cold, so if the tables were turned, there's a chance I might be on the side of people who believe that the ice age is a good thing. It's possible. But I like to eat too.

Private on the Internet

You can read this, right? I haven't instituted some kind of password protection scheme (which can, I believe, be done, but which defeats the purpose of a general readership blog, at least in my opinion), have I?

So if I write something here, the whole world could possibly read it. It's not likely, but every single person in the world could read anything I write. And what is far more likely is that any individual person could read it, let alone a large group.

So why does it come as a surprise to some people that things they post publicly on the Internet come back to bite them in the ass? Exactly what was the misunderstanding?

I know that some people think sites like FaceBook or MySpace or what have you are personal private communities with a very restricted guest list. Wise up, people. All these social networking sites have huge numbers of users, and unless you take precautions, even non-members can view content you put on those sites. Anything you say on a social networking site is like going into a crowded room (very crowded, in fact) and yelling that same thing on a bullhorn. Only it's worse because, unlike yelling, what you write on the Internet can be seen forever, searched, accessed, and remembered by computers. How exactly does that equate in people's minds to "private?"

The problem as I see it is that people want to have everything. They want to have a vibrant online community which allows them to speak their minds to anyone and everyone, so they don't institute any safeguards with respect to information-sharing. But they also want to be safe and loved, so they believe, through a supreme act of cognitive dissonance, that the only people who read their thoughts are the people for whom those thoughts are intended. Wiser people will tell you that a certain amount of information-policing is necessary, that charging a cover to keep out the riff-raff is a necessary perhaps-evil, that the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff is important. But most people don't see it that way. They see the Internet as a vast free freedom freeness free-itude free-ousity, and they don't see the downside to that.

Face it, FaceBook: if I went up to a teacher in school and said, to their face, that I thought they sucked and I hoped they would die, I would rightfully be punished. How is it any different if I write those same words in a blog? Both times I am exercising my right to free speech, but the problem with free speech is that it sometimes comes with a price. Likewise, if I write a memo to my boss telling them exactly how I feel about them, I will probably be fired (unless how I feel about them is that they are extremely good at their jobs, in which case I might be fired for sexual harassment or something). How is that memo, which might fall into the wrong hands (namely the hands of the person to whom it was sent, but let's not split hairs) any different from writing the same in my blog, which might be read by anyone.

The lesson here, kids, is that free speech can be heard by anyone, often with unfortunate consequences. While I don't think it would be acceptable to punish someone for expressing their opinions on matters unrelated to either school or work (or whatever hands down the punishment) and in some cases not even then, it's a risk you run when you believe that things you write on the Internet won't be read by the wrong people.

Look at this blog. I will probably never be able to run for President because of it. That's what I get for freely expressing my opinions under a transparent pseudonym.

Heroes

No, this is not about the television show. Please don't think it is. If you came here under the mistaken impression that this was about the television show, haha, I've trapped you now! Your click-through will only cause me to swell in size! You cannot stop me! I am invincible!

Sorry, it got away from me for a minute.

Since I spent so much time at the beginning fooling around, I'll try to keep this short. I just want to know what happened to heroes?

It's not an idle question. Why are all our heroes so crappy these days? I don't mean superheroes, I mean the people we elevate as heroic in our society.

A word to the wise: the Congress does not give out Medals of Honor (which is what they are called, for those of you who haven't learned that yet) for preforming your duty up to standards. They don't award medals for adequacy.

No, wait, they do. But not the kind of medals with the cachet of heroism. They give out Good Conduct Medals for adequate service. But to be a hero, you have to go beyond the call of duty (no, I'm not talking about the video game either). You have to take it to the next level. You have to do more than we pay you for.

So for someone to call themselves a hero for doing what they were supposed to, that's lazy. That's false. That besmirches the heroism of every single other hero. Heroism isn't about doing your job.

And dying? Since when did dying make you a hero? It's a classic concept: die for [cause goes here] and you'll be a hero. The rejoinder is just as classic: you'll be a dead hero. So why does dying for anything automatically make you a hero?

I'm not saying that people who die can't be heroes, and you can die heroically. But it's not the only way, or even the best way, to become one. Sometimes it's the easiest way, but that's not what heroes are made of. They aren't supposed to be about the easy way. Sometimes it's more heroic to live, even if it's more difficult.

I'm starting to sound like a recruitment poster, so I'll stop now. But consider what I'm saying. It's more difficult than it seems at first, because we like to elevate people in status simply because they were victims, or because they did good things. But if those good things were what they were supposed to be doing, or if their death was entirely unrelated to anything other than dying, they just aren't heroes. Doesn't make them bad people. Just not heroes.

And yes, I'm talking about your brother who was killed in Iraq or your mother who was killed on 9/11 or your cousin who is a fire fighter. I'm blasting your personal hero. Feel free to hate me for it.

Blog of Note

Just how exactly do you become a blog of note. I should capitalize that, I suppose, since it's so all-fired important and all, but I'm not going to because I'm sticking it to the man, whom I'm also not going to capitalize. Gosh, what a sexy and dangerous rebel I am.

All kidding aside, Blogs of Note got me thinking about metrics, and it's always dangerous when I think about metrics. Because what is a Blog of Note? I'm sure someone knows; they have to have picked them somehow. Maybe it's random, but that's still a metric. More likely, it's either a metric based on site traffic or it's an editorial decision.

You may not think it matters. Consider this, however, mes amis: a Blog of Note is much more likely to be visited, and thus, if said Blog of Note contains advertising or other forms of profit, said blog is more likely to profit. And that's important to some people. Even if the only profit realized is increased visibility for someone's ideas, being a Blog of Note is likely to cause that to be.

What's wrong with that? After all, some things are going to be more popular than others. Well, for one thing, it's a positive feedback loop, really. Suppose for a moment that a blog becomes Notorious (I like that better than Noteworthy) because of its popularity. I'm not saying that I know (and I'll get to that in a minute). But suppose. Now being popular has made the site noticed, and thus Notorious, and thus is likely to cause the site to become even more popular. That's positive feedback; more breeds more.

Suppose, on the other hand, that Blogs of Note became Blogs You Should Notice But Don't. That's positive feedback too, but it only supplies positive feedback to things which are below a certain threshold. After a blog achieves a certain popularity, it can no longer be said to be Unnoticed, and so will be removed from contention for the Roll of Blogs. But this strategy is unlikely to work simply; editorial control will certainly have to be exercised since there are a lot of unpopular blogs out there which are unpopular for a very good reason (they don't deserve popularity, in other words).

But the most worrying factor about the whole thing is that we don't know what it takes to make a blog Notorious (in case there's any confusion at this point, "Notorious," means, "A Blog of Note"). It could be anything from the suggestions given to paying money to the most pictures of naked people. There are more or less likely answers, but the truth is that it isn't made transparently clear. Who knows; there may well be somewhere to go to find out how to become Notorious, but it's not right there underneath the Roll of Blogs of Note.

You may now be asking, "Why are you wasting our time talking about Blogs of Note. It's a picayune little matter of pride and self-importance, mostly." And you would be right. I am slightly jealous of Blog-Notoriety. But more than that, I am using a stupid example to illustrate a frightening problem: people don't tell anyone what metrics they use. And we trust them without knowing.

How many times have you seen a poll and not even bothered to read the fine print, which probably didn't really explain the metric used anyway? How many times have you seen a ranking of something or someone and taken it as gospel without finding out how the ranking was achieved? It happens to all of us all too often; we're to busy to find out, or we don't know enough about statistics, or whatever, and we take the metric at face value without having seen its face.

Any time there is a metric involved, someone picked that metric. You have to decide: either you trust the person who picked the metric to have picked the right one, or you want to see the metric. Either you care enough, or you don't. But don't make the decision by default.

All I do in this blog, by and large, is exhort people to think for themselves. If that isn't stupid, I don't know what is. But maybe it's stupid enough to deserve Notoriety. If there's a way to vote, vote for me so I can see my name in lights.

People Think They're Sexy

Actually, people think other people are sexy, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose there are also a fair number of people who think themselves sexy, but I'm actually not dwelling on narcissism.

Jack Black

Honestly, I don't see it. Especially all scruffy-looking as you appear these days. It's probably a combination of humor and complete lack of shame. I don't think it works on everyone. But obviously it works on someone, which is why you aren't just funny.

Adam Sandler

Jeez, ditto with a capital D. You're more vulnerable than Jack Black is, but I don't really understand why that works for you or anyone else.

Tom Cruise

Katie, even though you're Catholic, you can't be that Catholic, since you married him in a Scientological ceremony and had sex before you did it. So for God's sake, get a divorce and get out. He's rapidly turning from inexplicably attractive (and I never really saw that) to just inexplicable.

Katie Holmes

You are fairly attractive, but I'm missing a certain amount of sex appeal. "Smoldering" is not the first word which comes to mind when I see you.

Janet Jackson

Next.

The Rest of the Jacksons

Next.

Johnny Depp

Damn.

Kiera Knightly

When you aren't greasy, or covered in far too much makeup, very nice. When you are, what are you thinking? Or what are they thinking for making you do it? Or both.

Kevin Spacey

I once said, offhand, that you were the only man with whom I would ever have sex, if I had to have sex with any man. Given the way the country is going, I doubt that forced homosexuality is likely in the near future, and it's possible that I might have to choose another option if you get too long in the tooth before that day arrives. But I never said that because I thought you were attractive. I said that because I had to give an answer to one of those stupid hypothetical questions, and this particular one has stuck with me.

I think that's just about enough of that. Since all I really wanted to do was question people's judgement on Jack Black's attractiveness, I don't know why I felt the need to tell the world about my forced-homosexuality options. I'm sure that question has been bandied about by almost everyone, and I think my answer is as good as any. Unless, of course, you happened to be a woman, in which case the whole thing kind of goes out the window. For the record, if I had to be a lesbian with someone, it would not be Kevin Spacey.

It May Be

I should have called this blog Nobody Gives a Damn About My E/N Crap. But that was a bit long to have as an address: nobodygivesadamnaboutmye/ncrap.blogspot.com. That's a mouthful. Plus there's the fact that the slash is illegal in addresses anyway (well, technically speaking, just in the host name, since slashes are an important part of most paths, but let's leave it).

But despite the fact that I didn't name the blog that, I begin feeling it. It is now May and I feel whiny, not least of which because I am so freaking late. I am abysmally late, and I'm sure that doesn't help people give a damn about my crappy whining. In fact, I'm sure it hurts. But rather than simply skipping ahead and making the blog look like it's been updated semi-regularly, then going back and filing in the blanks later on, I have chosen the path of disaster.

Why? Because I am your best friend. Really. You see, if I were to keep the blog fairly up to date as far as the most recent post is concerned, then go back and fill in the blanks, I would make myself seem better but confuse the hell out of everyone. How would you know whether or not I had filled in some blank? How would you know that the archives had been made more complete? I suppose you could look, but that would take time, and I'm your best friend, so I keep it simple.

Actually, it's just so you'll read everything. It's a ploy, all of it. If I filled in blanks, it wouldn't make your life any harder because you wouldn't read the stuff I filled in. So I'm sticking to my guns because I am a shameless whore. At least I have the courage to admit it.

Well, it's May, month of three letters. It's officially Communist Revolution Day too, so in honor of that occasion, I am not going to write what the Man wants to hear. Instead, I am going to whine. In red. Long live the glorious E/N revolution!