We Make No Sense

My friend Jen sent me an article out of the newspaper. It was about this woman who had some kind of chemical imbalance 15 years ago that caused her heart to stop for a few minutes. They managed to get it started again, but it left her severely brain-damaged. She can breathe on her own, but she has to be fed through a tube. And she has been kept alive like this for 15 years.

Now here comes the fun. Her husband claims she never wanted to be kept alive this way, said so, and says they should let her die. He’s been fighting for years to have this happen. Her parents claim she is not completely hopeless in the brains department because they think she does respond to their voices, and they think she will get better. It’s been 15 years, but that’s beside the point. They don’t think she should die, want the husband to no longer be her legal guardian, think he just wants her dead so he can go marry his girlfriend that he’s had for a few years and has kids with. Both sides think the other is after some money from a malpractice suit, and it’s become a bitter battle.

It gets better. Wanna guess how they propose to let her die? By removing the feeding tube! Isn’t that absolutely disgusting? Not by a shot of something, not by quick and merciful means, no. Let her starve to death, which could take a month! I agree that it’s ridiculous to keep someone alive who had said that she didn’t want to be kept this way for so long, and that it’s probably best to let her die because let’s face it folks, her brain is not going to spontaneously heal if it hasn’t done so for 15 years, but let’s be humaine about it!

And here’s where things really start to not make sense. The most vocal of protesters who have all kinds of ridiculous signs up like “Execution: it’s not just for the guilty anymore.” are also heavy religious people, anti-abortion activists and pro-life advocates. If you really think about that, they’re always against us taking an active role in ending lives or deciding whether people should live or die. But didn’t we take a rather active role in keeping her alive for 15 years? God didn’t put that feeding tube down there. It just pisses me off when I see these people choosing when cases help their cause and when they should just keep their mouth shut. Wasn’t it religious people out there trying to say that Robert Latimer did a good thing? Hell they wanted to give him some kind of award and elevate him to Mother Theresa status! In my opinion, what he did was so much worse, in principal, than this, even if the means here is absolutely horrible. But the point is how can a group support one assisted suicide and be completely against another? Granted they aren’t the same physical people, but I always see this with these groups.

Another thing that gets me mad is protesters out there trying to defend someone, and they don’t even know if that someone wants their defense. I doubt the lady in a coma wanted 30 people to keep a vigil outside the hospice where she is, hold up those ridiculous signs, and just get generally involved in the private matter of her life. It’s one thing if she asked for support and people took up her cause. It’s completely another when people do this of their own free will because they think it’s the right thing. Stick to causes where you have been enlisted to help, folks.

And then there are her parents. I understand a parent’s need to save their child, and that infinite hope that they will get better. But they make a point of saying they are devout catholics. Then they say they’ve been urging her husband to divorce her and let them take care of her. Isn’t that, like, completely against the “til death do us part” part that religious people get so anal about? I just love how everybody picks and chooses what suits them from a given set of convictions.

They’ve removed the feeding tube now, so this crap begins. I just don’t understand why it has to be the way of the feeding tube that she has to die. With all the stuff we have now, and how deeply the courts have been involved, it’s not like her death would be criminal. Hell they’ve made it legal that the tube be removed. How about finding a better way for her to die? The whole case just bothers me, and a lot of it just makes no sense.

Cereal Box Textbooks

Ok, I’m pissed off. I was writing this beautiful post, and then my computer decided to take a big cack of doom, and the post died with it. So I’m going to try and recreate the coolness that was that post.

The other day I was reading my Evolutionary Psychology textbook. Basically the premise of Evolutionary Psych is that, just as our bodies have evolved features to survive in the environment, so have our brains. but since the vast majority of human history in the big picture was spent in the stone age, a lot of our behaviour still fits that time. And there are some cases where that makes sense. They showed that we are a lot better at dealing with problems where you ask, “How many times in a given day is this likely to happen?” than we are when it’s asked, “What are the odds…?” because the ability to do probabilities was only realized a few hundred years ago, but we’ve always needed to count how many berries there are, how many times the big ugly beast with teeth and claws comes hunting, etc. Yep, I follow. That makes sense.

But then there are some cases where there seems to be no logical root to what they’re saying. It seems like science has gone straight out the window, and if we’re lucky, mad science has taken its place, and if not, some idiotic philosophy is all you get.

I was reading some of this shit the other day, and it made me so unbelievably mad that I could envision myself hurling things at the textbook. The chapter was on the evolution of abnormal psychology, or mental illness. First it tried to say that depression was a natural defense that kicked in when you’re losing a battle, you feel like the resources you’re spending are already too much, and it’s better to cut your losses. Hello, that’s not the way depressed people work. Instead of deciding to give up on one battle, they give up on *all* battles, except for the absolute bare essentials, and sometimes not even that much. How is that a beneficial trait? A defense? Choosing not to shower is not adaptive. Choosing to give up all your commitments and isolating yourself from family and friends is not adaptive. Ok ok ok, too modern for you? Choosing not to hunt for food is not adaptive. Not getting up to fend off predators is certainly not adaptive. How can they possibly even remotely think that they can explain depression this way? Just admit that you don’t know, shut up, and don’t give me this non-scientific what-if bullshit.

But the part that really got me mad was where they tried to say that suicide was adaptive, and evolved so that people who knew that they were a drain on resources and weren’t making babies would just kill themselves. Apparently this would also make their family members have more children because more resources would be available to them, so their genes would live on in their absence and they’d be the great glorious martyrs. First they tried to say that the elderly were most likely to commit suicide. I don’t know, but last time I checked stats, youth suicide rates were pretty damn high. I think the only thing that kills more young people are car crashes. Then they tried to say that homosexuals, people in hospitals and people in nursing homes and mental hospitals were high in suicidal thoughts. This was, in their opinion, because these people knew they couldn’t be sexually successful, so why not cash it in? Ok, wait a minute. How about the way they’re being treated? How about the fact that, at least gays and those in mental hospitals are shunned and treated badly by a lot of people. That has no effect at all? No no no. It’s because they can’t pop out a miniature collection of their genes and continue on the line! Ok, isn’t this a little unfair? After raling against psychology for saying that the environment is all-important and genes mean nothing for so many years, aren’t you just doing the exact same in reverse?

And finally, what in the good god damn gives these textbook authors the right to condone suicide as a possibly adaptive behaviour? Who the hell is ever a complete drain on resources? I don’t think there are many. And it pisses me right off that someone would even theorize that this is possible, and then back it up with flimsy scientific research! If you don’t know damn well about a statement like that, don’t! even! bother! publishing! it! It just makes you look bad, wastes precious paper, wastes our time, and could possibly give some suicidal people some dangerous ideas. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t talk about suicide. I’m just saying don’t say “Well, in some cases, maybe it’s a good idea.” That is never what anyone needs to hear, and shouldn’t have been published in the first place.

Ok I think I’m done. I just couldn’t believe I was reading what I was reading. I’ve seen horrible errors in textbooks before, but this was just unbelievably over the top, and I was absolutely appalled that it made it into the final draft without someone catching it and going, “Woe I don’t think that should get published.” I don’t believe in censorship, but I believe in the publishing of a good book!

Don’t Ask Me Where That Is, I Just Drive By It Every Day

Ok, where are these bus drivers’ heads? I get on the bus, but because I’m running behind schedule, I decide to instead of coming into the main place where the buses stop at the university, I’d go to a stop near where I was going since I heard that there was one. So I ask the bus driver to make sure. I said, “Do you stop near the Powel Building?” He says to me with a bewildered look, “I have no idea.” Bear in mind that this is a big building with signs that point at it saying Powell Building This Way. I decide to get on the bus anyway and tell him to start looking when he gets close to the Athletic Centre. Sure enough, as we aproach, he says, “Oh there’s a sign for it!” And this is a regular bus route. There were no detours, he travels it all the damn time. I have to wonder, what are these bus drivers looking at when they drive? If they don’t notice road signs as they’re driving on the…road, then what else are they missing?

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Hell, two different bus drivers who drive by it all the time had no idea where it was. One time I asked to be let off where all the residences are. Ya know, the big block of buildings that are residences. The response? “Where’s that?” How do you miss a whole set of residences?!?!?! And Steve posted about how one bus driver wasn’t even aware of a whole street! Holy zombification! I just hope that maybe today this bus driver was enlightened and knows where the Powell building is for next time…na, that’s being too hopeful.

You Are Here?

That’s right, we’re doing searches again. This one’s going to be fairly quick since a lot of this stuff makes fun of itself so I don’t have to say much.

Thanks, as usual, go out to the deviants and generally insane people who make this all possible.

I’ll warn you ahead of time, this is going to suck. It will by no means be nearly as funny as the last one or the ones before it. It will probably be even less funny than some of the ones that you might not have thought were that good.

08 Mar, Tue, 06:03:18
Yahoo:
Randy Orton’s naked pictures

Of who?

Ahh forget it, it’s not like whoever this is is going to get a grammar joke anyway, so I won’t waste my time.

07 Mar, Mon, 11:50:16
Yahoo:
fuck your wife in divorce court

I can’t decide if this guy is looking for a restraining order or a reconciliation.

14 Mar, Mon, 13:40:07
Yahoo:
masterbating with vomit

I’m not even gonna touch that one, but I bet if I did it would be squishy.

13 Mar, Sun, 18:25:00
Yahoo:
fucking lucky ass bitchs that write random lyrics and somehow get bands to sing it so that the writer gets money

I think it might be time for another translation contest. I’m lost.

14 Mar, Mon, 12:54:55
Yahoo:
The couple was arguing Saturday because the man, whose name was not released, wanted to end the year-old relationship, Shell said. The pair decided to have sex, and the man agreed to have his arms tied to a window handle above their bed. The woman pulled out a kitchen knife and severed his penis, police said.

I didn’t include this because I have no idea what this person is looking for, it’s because I do. This guy quoted pretty much every detail, word for word, from the severed penis article I posted a few weeks ago. What I can’t figure out is why would you waste your time if you have the whole thing in front of you? What new information could we possibly have to offer a guy who’s quoting half the article?

See, I told you this would suck. I’ll try to do better next time, but I’m only as good as what I have to work with.

Obvious Pompous Asses

Don’t you just hate it when you meet someone who just exudes pompous assedness? It doesn’t matter what they say. They could say the most profound thing, which they incidentally never do because they can’t, but they can say the most well-intentioned thing anyway, and you can’t take them seriously. In fact, the whole time they’re talking, you can feel yourself becoming unexplainably enraged at them, and wish they’d just shut up and go away.

I met such a person the other day. He’s the president of my university, great joy. I was at a ceremony to kick off that disability awareness campaign thingy. And of course the first one to make a speech would be our president, Sir bullshitalot. Wish that was his name, but hell that’s what it’ll be here. He stood up and rambled about how we must not focus on disabilities, but abilities. Ok, that makes sense, sort of. But people have to realize barriers exist so they can disappear and *then* we can focus on abilities. But you can’t live in an idealized world, say they don’t exist, bury your head in the sand and expect people’s *abilities* to shine. Anyway, that’s a side point. The point is he seemed so insincere about it. It was almost like he had reverse Charisma! The whole time he was talking, I was having a mental war. Half of me was saying, “Ok, I’m glad the president came, it’s a good sign. It’s an ok speech I guess.” And the other part of me was just repeatedly chanting, “Shut! Up! Shut! Up! You don’t know jack squat! And Worse than that, you don’t care! You wouldn’t stop to help an old lady who fell down! If you really cared, you would make more buildings wheelchair accessible and have more rooms outfitted with the system for the hearing impaired!” This was immediately followed by the other half of me saying, “That makes no logical sense. You don’t know his real personality. Maybe he’s a real nice guy. And things are geting better. Things have gotten a lot better than when you first arrived. What is your problem? Listen to his speech and calm down!”
But the thing is I couldn’t. He even managed to piss me off by his final line of his speech. He turned to the speaker who was going to speak next and called him a true role model. Uh-huh. And I am to believe that he truly believes that in his heart of hearts. When someone calls someone else a role model, they have to be sincere. They can’t make it sound like they probably just read his profile this morning while writing this PR stunt speech to decide what flowery words to say.

This seemingly complete fake’s speech, along with a few other things that happened, soured me on the whole event. Now that’s some power you don’t want to possess. The part that baffles me is how did this guy get voted in? Were the candidates really that shitty? Or is there something truly amazing about him that I don’t know? Or did he bribe someone? Maybe I’ll go for a bit of column a. and a bit of column c. Excuse my synical attitude.

Has anyone else met someone with this kind of reverse charisma? Or am I just weird?

Time to Kick Myself Really Hard

Here is a case where I have let my face get associated with stupidity, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it…now. It wouldn’t be so bad if I couldn’t have done anything about it ever, but the thing is I had the chance to save this, and I didn’t even realize it.

A while back, these people decided to do a disability/accessibility awareness campaign. As part of the campaign, they wanted to get a bunch of people with various disabilities together, show them doing cool stuff, take pictures of them and put the pictures on a poster. Cool. Then below each person’s face, they had a blurb about them. Still cool. That is, until I read the blurbs. I read them before the posters were finalized, and didn’t notice this. In everybody’s blurb, it said, “I have xxx disability, my abilities are infinite.”

Woe papa, back the truck up. *nobody’s* abilities are infinite. The most brilliant genius’s abilities are by no means infinite. Einstein devised the theory of relativity, but talking to him, so I’ve read, was like pulling teeth. Virginia Wolfe was a brilliant author. She was also seriously depressed. We all have things we are less than perfect at and other things at which we excel. By being human, we all have limits! Saying that our abilities are infinite makes the whole campaign ridiculous. It makes people with disabilities seem like we should be suddenly superhuman. Now was that really what they were going for?

I can only pray and hope that people will look at the posters, ignore that sentence, although I find that hard to believe since it’s below everybody’s face, and move on. The last thing I wanted to do in that poster was say that I’m better than everybody else because my abilities are infinite. that is so conceited. I shouldn’t worry. That’ll probably be exactly what’ll happen. People don’t read anyway. I’m just mad at myself for not noticing it in time.

Here at We Make No Sense U…

Here’s something to prove that the content of the courses you’re taking really doesn’t matter. All that matters is you slogging through it and telling the prof what he wants to hear. Like I said last week, one of my profs got pretty badly smucked in a car accident. So of course they’re going to throw together guest lecturers. Yep yep I understand that. For the first little while the guest lecturers make sense. Until next week. Then for the next three weeks, we’re getting lectured to by a guy from the department of…wait for it…philosophy! This course is evolutionary psychology! What can this philosophy guy possibly know about evolutionary psychology? If we’re lucky, he’s read a couple papers about it for interest, skimming them for interesting pieces to bring up with his students while they contemplate the meaning of life.

I hear it now. “Don’t be mean to the philosophy guy. Maybe he understands more than you think.” But would you think it normal for a biology teacher to stand in for an english prof? Or the opposite? How about a computers teacher for art? It’s just weird.

I understand these are desperate times, and since the prof was willing to teach for three weeks, the poor frazzled TA was probably ecstatic and took him up on it. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re to use this guy as a resource for writing our evolutionary psych papers! How can this guy help give us pointers in a subject in which he might have mild interest at best? Why not give us a resource that might know a little more about the literature than a passing glance? If they really cared about course content, I think they would try a little harder to find us someone at least relevant to give us paper suggestions. I can swallow the lectures, even though three weeks of a guy who is basically the complete opposite of evolutionary psych is a bit weird. But I know they’re sort of under the gun and why turn down an offer like that? But come on. Isn’t there someone better for the papers? Is this philosophy guy actually going to grade these? Make me feel like the stuff I’m writing is going to be read by someone who actually knows a thing or two about this, and don’t make me feel like I’m just spewing out garbage to satisfy someone’s beliefs. Ok I already knew that, but at least give me the illusion that I’m doing something of value for my last paper in my degree.

A Note to Anyone Planning a Campus

Hey Sparky, here’s a tip. The next time you’re building new buildings and renaming old ones, how about not giving three buildings on the same street the same person’s name? I’m serious. On this campus, we have a Macdonald Hall, which has been there for aeons, a Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, which has been there for a while, and then we had a building that had a nice original name, and now it’s called Macdonald Institute! And they’re all close to each other! Like jesus! How rich is Macdonald anyway? And can I have some dough too while you’re doling it out?

Seriously, I’ve gotten lost so many times because people think I’m looking for one Macdonald when I’m looking for another. Can we at least start calling one of them something like the Joe Macdonald center and the other Bob? Come on, let’s distinguish them somehow.

Cards Are Going to Hell!

I mean it. What is with all the mushy gushy bless you love you cards? I know they’re cards, but it seems like gone are the days when you had a variety of kinds of cards. For the poet who isn’t eloquent enough to write his own poem and sends email hug certificates and likes pre-written sap, there were the pre-written sap smooch your face off cards. But they were sandwiched among the humourous cards, even if they didn’t fit the person you were sending it to. And then there were your basic cards that left the card-sender lots of room to write his own personal message. Bring me back those days!

I was trying to find a get-well card for that prof I talked about last week. The one who’s stuck in the hospital for who knows how long. And god damn it! Some cards were covered in flowers. What? Do only women get sick? What the hell!

Then there were the cards lined with poetry. If the guy’s all doped up in the hospital, does he really want to read a god damn sonnet that wasn’t even written by the person wishing him well? And isn’t it so insincere to send something pre-written anyway? If you really cared, you’d write the note yourself, you wouldn’t wait for Hallmark to speak it for you.

And these are the cards that piss me off so much! They start off all simple, and then they end with, “with love.” Ok, you were doing so well! Why did you have to louse it all up? If I wanted a lovy-duvvy card, I would have picked the ones with the sonnets or the ones with the flowers! Can’t you pick a side of the fense to stay on?

And I only found one funny get well card. Come on, don’t these people deserve a laugh? They’re in the hospital after all!

Luckily I had more luck today getting thank you cards, but still, don’t you thinka thank you card is supposed to be simple? Not according to people writing cards now. Half of them were talking about friends being angels to make the earth a better place. What if you’re thanking someone for an award. Do you really have to call them an angel friend?

I just swear all the variety and coolness has gone out of cards. Has society gotten to the point that wordiness and pictures mean more than a gesture? Wow, this whole cards rant has gotten into deeper thoughts than I planned.

Celebrities And Satan Lesson 2: The Anti-Christ Revealed

As you may recall, a few short days ago we learned that S Club 7, a group of 7 British kids who don’t play instruments but somehow still manage to make what some would call music, are evil. And today we will learn that they are not alone. Today, their master in evil is exposed, and his name is David Hasselhoff! Yes, I said David Hasselhoff.

Hey, it’s in the Bible, which is only the best selling fictional work of all time. How can you argue with that? Quite simply, you can’t.