1 post tagged “nonvital organs”

I need to get a few things off my chest, without going into whole big long spiels about any of them.

1.  I'm sick of hearing people under the guise of environmentalism claim that no one "needs" to have children or "needs" to have more than one or two children.  There are a lot of things wrong with this, but the most glaring is that we do and own a lot of shit that we don't "need."  Ninety percent of people who own and use a cell phone have no actual need for it, yet they expend great deals of energy charging them and replacing them when new, cooler models come out.  We don't "need" golf courses, yet we expend great amounts of water and energy maintaining them, including in the Sonoran desert.  We don't "need" clothes dryers, or at least most of us do not.  We don't "need" makeup or beauty salons or 10 pairs of shoes.  We have all those things, none of them contribute measurably to the health and well-being of society, yet we have them and more.  So, fuck off about whether or not we "need" children, eh.

2.  Bourdain, you fucker.  I used to like you, but your hypocritical anti-hunting stance is getting to be too much.  On the one hand, you eat meat, which means you have no principled anti-killing belief.  You also regularly chide vegetarians, vegans, raw foodies, and other people for being ungracious and elitist as regards other cultures and their culinary heritages.  I believe you gave it to Woody Harrelson pretty good for refusing a meal in Thailand, right?  So, you support the killing of animals for food and respect for cultural heritage as it appears at the dinner table.  Great.  But then you think hunting is immoral?  Um.  It's OK to depend on the death of animals for sustenance, as long as the blood is literally on someone else's hands, is that it?  Is hunting acceptable to you when it's done by the Bushmen of the Kalahari but not when it's done by an American, because you have some notion that the Bushmen need to hunt but Americans don't, since we can get nice, sanitized and irradiated, shrink-wrapped shit at the grocery store 24/7?  Is that your thinking?  You don't think that maybe for some Americans, the inhumanely raised, antibiotic laced freakshow meat that we could get at the supermarket is unacceptable?  You don't think maybe hunting is part of the cultural heritage of some Americans (distantly, it is the cultural heritage of nearly every people on earth; more distantly, it is everyone's cultural heritage, but for some of us, the ties to that culture still exist, yes, even in fucking America) and therefore is as worthy of respect as Thai food?  What the fuck are you thinking?  I can understand when vegans and vegetarians are anti-hunting because, although I disagree with them, they have a consistent and principled stand against the use of animals for food.  But not this, Bourdain.  No, this I cannot abide.

3.  Dude, no.  For one thing, this whole "Europeans are so much more evolved than Americans are..." shit is getting old.  YOU think Europeans are "more evolved" because whatever it is that they do is what you want to do, but that does not provide anything substantial.  So, Europeans are more tolerant of adultery?  Why is that morally superior to not tolerating adultery?  I think if you really took a hard look at some of what you're talking about, you would find that actually a lot of women in cultures that "tolerate" cheating are not that happy about it; they just tolerate it, no more.  I think you would also find that more Americans tolerate it than you currently think. 

Also, just because you have a poorly controlled desire to sleep around on your wife, that does not itself invalidate the principles of monogamous marriage.  That men, overall, have a more polyamorous libido than women has become a sort of stock reason why men should be forgiven their inability or unwillingness to remain faithful.  However, most men do, in fact, remain faithful, as do most women.  Most marriages do not end in divorce, and most married people would prefer to maintain their marriage even at the cost of unfettered sex.  In other words, while there may well be problems with monogamy and marriage, in this case, the problem is YOU, not the system.

4.  I have also become very tired of people talking about marriage, either hetero or homo, as being primarily about "love."  Love is nice, of course.  Who doesn't like love?  But the government doesn't give you tax breaks because you're in love.  The reason we sanction marriage--not just America, but human societies in general, across time and space, although certainly the forms marriage takes are not uniform across cultures and history--has nothing to do with being in love.  The way we think about the love aspect of marriage is new-ish and culturally bound.  The reasons human societies have usually sanctioned some type of marriage (and not others) is because of the good those relationships are thought to bring to society.  Marriage exists because more than one person sharing a single household conserves resources.  It exists because a stable two- or multiple-parent home is safer, more economically secure and viable, and more emotionally secure for the raising of children.  It exists because of the very human emotion of jealousy.  It is notable in the piece mentioned in #3, when his wife finally says, "OK, we'll have an open marriage.  And I will be spending the night elsewhere on Wednesday," he's all "nooooo!."  (The general distaste for adultery and polyamory also probably stems from the fact that, let's face it, even men who think they are only after casual sex sometimes end up getting emotionally attached to the sex partner, and those emotions can destabilize the marriage and home.)  Listen, it's fine, it's great, it's wonderful that you love your spouse, but if you don't couple with a sense of duty and commitment, it's not worth much.  We sanction marriage as a matter of public policy because of the duty and commitment part.  This is why I think liberals' standard arguments about gay marriage are stupid and less than compelling.  Conservatives are not won over by the appeal to love.  On the other hand, there is no compelling evidence that TEH GAYZ are unsuitable as parents or more likely to dissolve their marriages than heterosexuals (the evidence currently suggests that gay marriages are more likely to last than straight ones, but my suspicion is that this is because of the small sample pool; I am going to guess that once gay marriage is legal in all 54 states and gays start marrying at similar rates as heterosexuals and start making the fool mistakes heteros make by marrying at 19 or whatever, the divorce rates will be similar).  Since homosexual marriage can provide a stable and secure home for children, can conserve resources by joining two people under one roof, and so forth, I see no compelling reason to limit it.  I just want to make it clear to homos and heteros alike:  No one cares about the love part.  That's between you and the spouse, and not really a matter for the government to intervene in.

5.  Yes, 54 states.  I am ready for Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands to become states.  I don't understand the current arrangement.  It vexes me.  So, make them states.

6.  The humidity in our house was 2% today.  That's not a typo.  I am shriveling up like a raising as I write this.  What the fucking fuck, weather?  Weather:  You are on notice.

7.  John--I would gladly trade one of my unnecessary organs to have had the pleasure of speaking with you today.  Would you prefer a spleen or an appendix?  As I understand you no longer have an appendix of your own, perhaps the appendix?  Goddamn.  I am so sorry I missed your call.

That is all.  Thanks for listening.  Good night.