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Have yourself a freaky little Xmas

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Today, I thought I would take a break from the usual soulful introspection and share some of my favorite unusual Xmas songs with you nice people.

I find they make a refreshing change from the usual array of Xmas songs. This is the Xmas songlist for the Doctor Demento crowd. I might sneak in a few of my favorite normal-ish songs too.

Like this weird yet oddly charming yet slightly disturbing tune.

I really did not expect there to be an original music video for that song! Little Gayla Peevey recorded that song when she was just ten years old. The song was a big hit, so much so that a zoo got the bright idea of having a “buy a hippo for Gayla” campaign, which raised the modern equivalent of $27K dollars. A baby hippo was bought and given to Gayla, who of course donated it back to the zoo.

Quite a lovely thing to do, really.

And I love the line about “just take him in the front door, that’s the easy thing to do!”. This kids is a pragmatist after my own heart.

Next, something a tad more modern, from geek troubadour Jonathan Coulton.

In case the song didn’t make it clear, a “podsafe” song is one that it is safe to include in your podcast because it is in the public domain and hence there is no chance you will get sued by some rights holder.

The song is cute on its own. But I have to admit, for me, the main appeal is how it’s a skillful and loving parody of another song from long, long ago.

Things like that make my comedy geek heart happy. They really do.

And speaking of my comedy geek heart, here’s a number off the two album set of Xmas songs my parents had when I was a kid and vinyl was still king.

Listen to the whole thing. The wackiness ensues about a minute into it.

I loved that song so much when I was a kid. It was so silly and fun, and to a kid, quite surprising. And speaking of surprises, I was surprised that this was not, in fact, a Spike Jones track. It’s very much in his style, including the use of sound effects and the inclusion of a “straight” version of the song at the beginning so that wackiness has more impact.

But no, it’s by some dude named Fred Waring. Well, I guess that style of doing comedy songs is not the sort of thing Spike Jones could copyright.

And now, a cautionary tale from the “naughty” side of the list.

Sorry for the crappy animation. It gets the job done.

And now, a familiar tune with ever so slightly different lyrics.

I love that song so damned much. True, it’s not technically an Xmas song any more, but I am including it anyway because it’s so delightful. It’s probably my favorite Bob Rivers (aka our parents’ Weird Al) song of all time. So many of those little details that turn a good piece of art into a great one.

And well, what comedy geek Xmas list would be complete without some Weird Al?

Not his best work, to be honest, but it’s from pretty early in his career. I’m sure that later, it would get much, much worse.

I love and worship Al, but sometimes, he’s not funny, just mean. And gross.

Now a number for those of us who prefer our fucked up Xmas tunes with a heavy metal edge.

Yes, it’s Xmas With The Devil. Note that I linked to the album version even though that meant not having any actual video content, as opposed to a video of them performing it live.

That’s because the album version sounds so much better. Love that rich studio production sound. And that is one truly wicked bridge/solo. That’s the thing about Spinal Tap… even though they are “not a real band” (I would argue that if you can get on stage and do the songs, you’re a band) they take the music part of their act quite seriously and their songs, even very silly ones, are musically good and well produced. To me (and to Felicity), that is what makes musical comedy work.

Both the music and the comedy have to be good.

But if Xmas with the Devil is still not heavy metal enough for you, let’s see what our (really, really) old friends at Miskatonic University are singing around this time of year.

Such glad tidings! Remember, their worshipers get eaten first and are thus spared the sight of the unimaginable horrors to come! So remember to nail a still-living fish to every door (missing one means no mercy when the madness from space comes) and draw a tentacled horror on the forehead of every child you wish to offer as tribute! Oh, and now’s the time to slaughter and devour that unspeakable horror from between dimensions that you’ve been fattened up with the blood of the unwary all year!

It’s all so… festive.

Still, as much as I enjoy that most fucked up of Xmas songs, I feel like I have heard that tune somewhere before. It really rings a bell. Like it’s something my friend Carol played for me or something. You remember my friend, Carol O. T. Bells? Great gal, and one of the famous Bells triplets, all a dead ringer for one another. That’s what they used to call them…. the Bells ringers.

Sorry, my mind wandered there. Where had I heard that tune before? Oh right! From here :

Man, that retarded guy really commits, doesn’t he? Shame he got his original tune stolen.

Anyhow, that’s our freaky deaky bent and unnatural Xmas for all us loners, freaks, weirdos, burnouts, dropouts, freakouts, square pegs, societal dregs, and all the other people for whom a normal holiday season is just too damned weird.

Enjoy, my people. You deserve it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Kill your excuses

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Before they kill you.

I was talking to a young person the other day, and they mentioned that they felt they had to master the math they would have to take before they went back to college, and that um…. triggered me.

All I could see was a young person making the same mistakes I made and that lead me to being a 42 year old freshman, and as you may know, seeing a young person about to make the same mistake you made is intensely painful to older people.

I mean, serious, what the fuck’s the point of life if your experiences don’t improve the lot of the next generation? That’s how civilization works, goddamn it!

Let them at least make fresh, new, interesting mistakes!

The pain goaded me into action, and I may have um…. overexpressed myself. In other words, I probably came on way, way too strong with this young person and instead of this being some kind of magnificent generational torch-passing Teachable Moment, it probably came across to them as “This crazy old person is trying to make me feel bad about stuff”.

Lesson learned. Those were powerful emotions. Next time, I will remember to check myself.

But that got me thinking about what I was trying to get across to that young person, and so that’s what I am going to try to tell you tonight.

Lose your excuses. Excuses kill.

Anybody can come up with an excuse not to do something they don’t feel like doing. That’s because when you are looking for an excuse, you will take the first one that comes along. People looking for a way out are not too fussy about which one they take.

So any excuse will do. There are people out there leading miserable lives because they are hiding from the world behind miserable excuses. There are people out there doing the rough equivalent of winning the lottery but never cashing the check because then they’d have to put on shoes.

And there’s a reason for that. When you are looking for an excuse, all you are doing is looking for the fastest, easiest way out of the psychological conflict between knowing you want to do something and knowing you are too scared to actually do it.

And that’s an easy fix… if you ignore all sense of proportion, reason, or reality. That’s how degraded your thought process has to be to be willing to stoop to hide behind such tiny excuses.

Ask yourself this question : is this issue insurmountable, or just painful and/or scary? What exactly are you giving up by using this excuse? Is it really not worth enough for you to move out of your comfort zone and actually do something you don’t feel like doing? Are you really saying that pursuing your dreams, whatever they may be, is so scary to you that you would rather be permanently unhappy than be temporarily out of your comfort zone? Is that really the deal you are making with life?

Take it excuse by excuse. Think of something you dream of doing, and why you are not doing it, then ask yourself : if this excuse was removed from the equation… would I do it? Would I feel like doing it? Or would you just look for another excuse?

This is a serious question. Does imagining all your excuses gone… whatever it takes to remove them, whether it’s money, opportunity, or time travel.. gone make you feel happy? Or does it make you feel scared? Exposed? Make you desperately look around for something else to hide behind?

If it makes you feel scared an exposed, ask yourself why. Might it be that if all your excuses vanished, you would actually have to do it?

Notice how these excuses never have a quantity attached to them. That’s because quantities can be compared, and that might lead to you concluding that you really should follow your dreams. And I’m not talking five decimal places with three significant digits, either.

I am just talking about the kind of quantitative notion that lets you make a conscious decision about whether or not something is worth the cost. It doesn’t have to involve any number at all. All it has to do is let put the rewards on one side of the scale, and the costs on the other, and decide which is greater.

If you do this, you will find your wall of excuses is paper thin and easily demolished. That does not, I admit, mean it will be a painless or happy experience. Losing your illusions never is. But the reward is that you will be free of your chains and be able to find the motivation to demolish those excuses for real. You will see them as the solvable problems they are, and be able to move yourself in the right direction, the one that leads to you being happy, strong, and fulfilled.

You have it within yourself to become the kind of person you have always wanted to be. View your former excuses as solvable problems instead of insurmountable obstacles. It’s not a list of excuses, it’s a to-do list of the steps you need to take before you are free. Once you stop clinging to your excuses, you may be surprised to see how small and easily solved, or even outright dismissed, they are.

And don’t worry about leaving the life you know now. That life was never meant for you anyhow. Not the REAL you. You might have gotten distracted for a while, but now you are right on track and that sad person you used to think you were can be left behind like the clothes you wore as a child.

And you’re too big for both of them now.

Kill your excuses. Leave your comfort zone behind. Throw open the door to your prison and walk outside.

The world is waiting for you.

All you have to do is let it in.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Happier in Holland

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Read this article and see if it doesn’t make you want to move to The Netherlands.

Of particular interest to me is the section where it talks about how Dutch mothers are some of the most relaxed mothers in the world. This connects directly to the stuff I wrote about not that long ago about how relaxed, calm mothers raised confident, risk-taking, exploratory kids who make friends naturally and grow up to be stable, healthy adults.

Now imagine a whole nation of such people. Astounding.

Like I have said before, I am the nervous child of a nervous mother. I can’t say what I was like when I was born (obviously), but by all reports, I was a quiet baby. Didn’t cry much, happy on my own. And I was definitely a happy preschooler at one point. Oodles of natural charm and cute as all get out. And precocious as well. It was quite the package.

Then, the abuse happened.

So in that sense, I don’t know how much of my mother’s nervousness I inherited. A case could be made that I wasn’t born with a nervous temperament. As for her influence in raising me, that is very difficult to track, because while I have lovely memories of time spent with my mother as a wee one, most of my conscious memory of preschool life I was being raised by my babysitter Betty.

My parents had me nights and weekends, of course, but the nights didn’t really count, as they were always busy and/or tired. Thus the pattern of emotionally absent parenting began.

So while I did not have a nervous parent looking over my shoulder, instilling their fears into me, and keeping me off the swings, I also didn’t have a calm, confident parent I could run to when I was upset and needed comforting and reassurance.

I just had Zombie Mom and Angry Dad, and siblings who had little time for me either. I didn’t even have friends. When I contemplate all those years of loneliness, I feel an arctic wind blow through my soul.

I was so sad for so long. And I didn’t have the words to express it. And nobody knew, because if anyone asked, I said I was okay. I was far from okay, but I didn’t feel like I was allowed to be not-OK. My parents and siblings made it clear that I was useless and weak and should just stay out of the way, and I was to never, ever, ever ask for anything.

And so helplessness and hopelessness became the norm. I was miserable and couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t even know I was sick. When you are a kid, you don’t know what is normal and what is mental illness. If you had asked me if I was mentally ill, I would have said no, because my picture of mental illness would have been formed by TV and I knew I wasn’t like the crazy people I had seen THERE.

To be honest, I had never heard of depression. Few people had back then. I had literally no idea that being sad and scared all the time was an illness. I knew there was something wrong with me, but like a lot of depressives, I just assumed it was because I was worthless and useless and awful.

After all, that’s how the world treated me. And here’s the result : here I am still trying to process my childhood at the age of 42.

If only I had been born in Holland.

It’s a childhood that is hard to digest. I withdrew so far into myself that I am still trying to find me way out. Instead of breaking out of my shell like the baby chick I saw at Rainbow Valley, my shell just got thicker and thicker, and I lost my ability to feel safe.

To this day, I have trouble expressing my pain to anyone in realtime. My reflexive response is always to say everything is fine and I’m okay (so leave me alone and go away). It is wrong, deeply so, but it is the path of least anxiety. I have a deep seated fear that something terrible will happen if I open up.

It a vulnerability thing, at least in part. I feel like saying there is something wrong would expose me. Partly it’s because admitting it to someone else means facing the fact that I have a lot of problems, and part of me is still in deep denial about that. As absurd as that seems.

But I guess there’s still a part of me that thinks I will just snap out of it one day. That I will wake up, shake the depressive fog out of my head, and stride out into the bright and beautiful day of mental health like nothing ever happened.

And part of it is that I feel like if I admit there is something wrong, I will get in trouble for it. That opening myself up and making myself vulnerable like that will result in rejection, punishment, and shame instead of acceptance, comfort, and reassurance. I tried to open up many times as a kid. Every single time, it ended without my getting any of the help or at least sympathy I needed.

Why? Because they didn’t like me either. So like everyone else, they didn’t have time for me and honestly just wanted me to go away and stop bothering them.

I am seeing a real pattern here.

No wonder I ended up crazy. I was a little kid left all alone in the world. Orphans got more attention. No wonder I ended up with a feeling that nobody actually wants me around and everyone wishes I would just go away. That was the entire message of my childhood.

At least now, I am on the path to recovery. I don’t know if I will ever heal completely, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, anyhow.

And if it’s a train…. so be it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

What if you can’t fail out?

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“Please input fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ”
Genever stared at the ship computer’s exterior viewscreen. “Pardon me?”
“Please input fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ” said the computer, slightly louder.
“Haven’t you figured it out yet? I am never going to bring you your precious rocks!”
“Then this station will continue to be in carbofoam-only mode. ”
Genever groaned. Carbofoam was nutritionally complete… and completely flavorless. “I haven’t given you so much as a mote of dust in over three weeks. What makes you think I am going to change?”
“Question irrelevant. No prediction is being made. Please input fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ”
“Look, you have enough of all the chemicals you need to turn carbofoam into food to feed me for a thousand years. Why don’t you just do it?”
“Because you have not inputted fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Because you have not met the terms of your contract. ”
“Look, you don’t have to… ”
“Contract playback initiated. ”
Genever sighed as the computer’s screen lit up with a slightly shaky video of himself saying “I, Genever Montrose, agree to be transported by the Veo corporation to the planetoid designated ‘552XN-Second Hammer-178236-OCK’ for the purpose of mining the fuel Iosis from the rocks there. I understand and fully agree that, while all my biological needs, including oxygen, nutrition, sleeping facilities, cleaning and elimination facilities, and clean water, will be taken care of by the Veo corporation regardless of performance, luxuries are dependent on the delivery of Iosis-bearing ore to your mining vessel. ”
“Well I didn’t know that included… ”
“I understand that these luxuries include but are not limited to the following, ” continued the Genever on the screen. “Room temperature adjustment, luxury mattress, entertainment playback, holographic exercise projection, and flavour reconstruction.”
“End of playback. ” said the computer.
“Well… that doesn’t count. I was hung over at the time. ” said Genever.
“Medical scans read normal. ”
“Well I felt hung over!” Genever shouted, then sank into sullen contemplation.
“Please input fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ”
“So what you are saying is…. no matter how long I go without delivering ore to you, you will not give me a single thing on the luxury list? For the next nine months?”
“Yes. Exactly as was agreed. ”
As the computer played the contract video yet again, Genever thought about his situation. Why was he so surprised that he was expected to do what he’d agreed to do? What had he expected? What was he thinking when he signed up for this job? Why did he expect to get what he did not earn? Did he really think that refusing to work would force a computer to give in and give him what he wanted anyway? Was he really that spoiled?
“Fine. Whatever. ” Genever told the computer half-heartedly, and walked off into the lifeless rock garden that was this planetoid, not quite admitting to himself that as he did so, he was looking for a particular kind of rock.

Been meaning to write that one for a while.

I have talked before about failure addiction. How people become addicted to the sudden release of tension that failing at something gives them because now they can escape the situation, and how like all addictions it hollows people out as the victim becomes increasingly willing to jettison absolutely anything, including all self-respect, dignity, and honor, in order to get that wonderful release of tension.

But now I think it goes deeper than that. This tendency to give up and run away is more than an addiction, it’s the result of holding on to a childhood emotional response pattern well into adulthood. It is, in that sense, a failure to mature. A developmental delay.

Sometimes a very long one.

And I wonder what causes it. Lack of a competent parental figure to teach risk-taking and limit-pushing comes to mind. Without that, only the “run to mama” safety-oriented side of the equation is taught, and leads to far more than simply losing at conflicts.

It teaches the child the rule “safety above all”, and that when in doubt, they should seek safety. Thus they never learned to persevere. They internalize a predilection towards giving up and retreating to a position where they feel safe, and this cannot possibly lead to positive outcomes for most cases.

One of the points I make in the short story above is that sometimes, inflexible rules without an escape clause can be the best thing for a person. Genever can’t fail out of his situation. There is no way for him to get what he wants without delivering the ore. There is no way out. If he wants to experience food with flavour, he has to deliver.

And to my mind, that’s life. You have to deliver. And the sooner people learn that, the better off they will be in the long run. I am not saying that to be mean, I am saying that in the hopes of helping others rid themselves of ideas and beliefs which are holding them back and making them unhappy.

The only way to stop being a loser is to stay in the fight. Don’t lunge for the tension release button that is so temptingly close at hand. Be in it to win it. Use the anxiety as fuel for the fight. Yes, giving up offers instant relief. But it is killing you in the long term.

This does not make the world a cruel and hostile place. It makes it a perfectly fair place. Everybody has to produce. Everyone has to give to society. You’re just mad because you’re not an exception.

There are a lot of highly intelligent people not making the transition to adulthood because they fail to understand this. For whatever reason, they feel like they should always be able to quit when things get rough, and if life demands more than that, well it’s cruel and unfair.

Cruel, maybe. But not unfair.

“Please input fifteen kilograms of Iosis-bearing rock. ”

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

It’s not over till it’s…. oh.

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Journalism class ended early, leaving me with an hour to kill before Psych 1200. So, blogging.

I am sure the prof thought he was doing us a favor by ending early, but honestly it is a pain in the ass. And not just for me, either. I heard other students  complaining about sudden free time too.

Honestly, it is more like he did himself  a favour. I never realized this before, but being a professor is the only job where going home early can be disguised as a favour done for others. Hey kids, you get to go home early today! And so do I.

So now I am pondering hitting up the vending machine for snax. I love snax.

Right now, I wish I could just curl up for a nap. I am beginning to realize that sometimes I nap out of boredom. That is, quite frankly, pathetic.

Another thing that bugs me about the sudden end of class is that I feel like I was not ready for it emotionally. I am going to miss this class. I might not have learned much journalism, but I had a lot of fun, and we had a really good relaxed group vibe going. I am going to miss my classmates. They are a great bunch of kids. We had a lot of really good, stimulating discussions together, and for me, that’s a potent bonding experience.

That hints at something fundamentally wrong with me that I choose not to explore right now. 

So in a way, I wanted a chance to say goodbye to the class and tell everyone how much fun I had with them. And I did not get the chance.

Underneath all the logic, pragmatism, utilitarianism, and INTJness, I am just a big ol pile of sentimental jello.

Speaking of sentimentality,  Joe, Julian, and I watched a special celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the classic Charlie Brown Xmas Special, and it was AWFUL. Most of it was these gawdawful songs that sounded like a bitter, divorced, closeted music teacher would force their hapless students to sing in the Xmas Pageant from Hell.

In the Seventies.

I have had a chance to sleep on the experience, and I realize now that all of those songs were actually from various Charlie Brown specials, but most of them were NOT by Vincent Guaraldi. And get this… there are 50 Charlie Brown specials! Good grief! I have seen the Xmas one, the Thanksgiving one, the Halloween one, and (I am totally serious) Flashbeagle.

Oh, and Snoopy Come home, which was seemingly designed to inflict maximum emotional trauma on children. The No Dogs Allowed song was bad enough, but then I learned that children can get cancer.

So that’s five. Meaning that there are 45 that I have not seen. No wonder the quality of the songs took a nosedive. The songs were cheesy,  saccharine, and musically awful. And performed by people I have never heard of,mixed with sad has-beens like, believe it or not, Boyz 2 Men.

That band name has always soundevlike a delivery service for pederasts to me.

The one original song was a song written from the point of view of Charlie Brown as he was deciding which tree to buy, called “Just  Like Me”.

Again, totally not making that up. That is a real thing that actually happened. And it was, somehow, worse than you would think.

Now I am sure the people who made the special meant well, and the idea of a anniversary special featuring songs from all the specials sounds good on paper. And heck, I even liked some of the songs covered, like the Joe Cool song. Just…. not that version of it.

Maybe it was the arranger who was really to blame. I dunno.

Anyhow, not a fitting tribute to a cultural cornerstone, but then again, Charlie Brown never did get the kind of respect he deserved. That’s probably why I am astounded at how terrible the special was, and feel the need to vent about it, but I am not actually mad about it.

I more or less expected it to suck, and watched the whole thing through simply because I have a completion compulsion and that made me feel like if I stopped watching the show, the show would win. Never!

As for the financial update, AFAIK, a check from my sister Anne has made it to the Kwantlen financial office via Fed Ex by now, so by tomorrow, I should be all paid up.

I am really looking forward to it. Both because it will be a massive load off my mind and because I will then FINALLY be able to register for courses for next semester, and the sooner I do that, the better choices I will get.

I am already hard enough on the system because of my desire to take all my courses in Richmond and disinclination towards taking any course that starts before 1 PM. So that already limits my choices. I would therefore prefer to minimize the limitation imposed by time.

Besides, it’s a process I actually enjoy. I love optimization exercises, and that’s how I approach signing up for whatever five courses I will end up taking. Set up tight parameters and then get the best courses I can get within them.

That’s the sort of thing INTJs like me define as “fun”. We’re a strange lot.

And right now I am torn. Part of me wants to take more Psych, despite how much work it can be (and it will only get worse as I go). But the other part wants to take easy arts classes and just coast on through.

My arts degree is pretty flexible, so there’s a fair bit of wiggle room. I love Psych but it makes me do research and stuff. Right now, the idea of courses where I just have to write things sounds pretty good.

Who knows what I will end up with. All I know is that it will all contribute towards my arts degree (er, I mean, my creative writing degree) and odds are, whatever it is, I will manage.

Fuck Political Science, though.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Bullshit versus real environmentalism

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HTML Tables

BULLSHIT ENVIRONMENTALISM REAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
Protests the death of old growth forests, because for some reason the death of trees is sadder if they are old Recognizes that wood is wood and arbitrary age limits on foresting make no sense
Talks angrily about the rape of Mother Earth or Gaia Recognizes that while the Earth can be said to be alive, it is not a person and cannot be raped. More importantly, realizes that talking like that scares people away from the movement.
Has very PASSIONATE OPINIONS about IMPORTANT TOPICS that sometimes even require BOLD ALL CAPS to express. Has a deep but pragmatic dedication to solving the important issues surrounding environmentalism before things get too out of hand
Thinks humanity is DESTROYING the PLANET! Realizes that no matter what we do, the planet will be fine. Life on Earth will be fine. Even the human race will survive. What we’re fighting to save is civilization.
Like to talk about how awful civilization is, with its cars and pollution and carnivore tastes , and how the world would be better if everything was farms Thinks the aesthetic displeasure of a select group of effect intellectuals is a very poor justification for destroying most of civilization. Also wonders if these people understand that if the world was farmers, they’d be farmers.
Like to talk about how awful civilization is, with its cars and pollution and carnivore tastes , and how the world would be better if everything was some hazy version of the Forest Primeval where everything looks like a Tolkien illustration. Recognizes that here on Regular Earth, that situation would be less Tolkien and more the exact kind of brutal, unfair, unjust, social Darwinist nightmare that is a liberals worst nightmare .
Thinks that corporations are THE ENEMY because they are awful and icky and horrible and mean and must be DESTROYED because they are EVIL! Thinks that corporations are AN OBSTACLE, and as such, need to be surmounted, but is willing to deal with them or even boost their profits to get the job done.
Spend all its time and energy at protests, rallies, and other “group actions” that accomplish little more than generate a good feeling of togetherness and smug superiority in the participants while demanding nothing more of them than they do things they already like to do anyhow Spend their time and effort on things that might actually have an impact on the issue, like supporting research into carbon-busting technologies and working to get concrete and effective environmental legislature passed along with the enforcement powers to make it stick
Thinks that humans are THE ENEMY because they are awful and icky and horrible and mean and must be DESTROYED because they are EVIL! Recognizes that to be both insane and hypocritical, seeing as everyone saying that is a human themselves. But mostly it’s the supervillain-level of crazy that bothers them.
Hates science and progress and loves things that are “natural” Loves science and progress and wants to see more of it, and realizes that everything that exists is equally natural, whether it’s a beaver’s pond or Manhattan
Says “We can’t trust science to solve this problem… science is what got us into it!” Cannot begin to grasp even the scope of the scale of the parameters you could use to describe how staggeringly stupid a statement that is. Science isn’t a substance. It’s knowledge. It also realizes that if science can’t solve it, what can? Prayer? Magic? Group hugs?
Wants to save all the endangered species of the world and return them to the wild where they can kill and eat one another Agrees that biodiversity is important but only inasmuch as we don’t understand ecology well enough to know what species will turn out to be the load bearing brick on the pyramid of life. Mother Nature wipes out thousands of species before we came along and she will continue to do so long after we have gone to the stars and left this planet behind
Mourns the loss of the rain forests Knows that at the current rate, it would take thousands of years of tropical deforestation to hage a noticeable effect on the world and that most of the Earth’s oxygen comes from algae anyhow
Reveres aboriginal peoples because they lived in harmony with the land, unlike the White Europeans Know they lived in harmony with the land because they lacked the means and motive to do it much harm, just like White Europeans did before they had the means and motive to do it much harm.
Dedicate their efforts to “raising consciousness”, under the theory that there are people out there who haven’t heard of the environment yet Know that the consciousness battle was won long ago and “consciousness raising” is just a bullshit excuse for not actually confronting the problem
Sends people with sleeve tattoos, tongue piercings, and dayglo haircuts around to your Grandma’s house to talks to her about, I dunno, like the environment or something? Sends people dedicated enough to do what it takes to look trustworthy, learn everything about the exact topic at hand, and do what it takes to get people on your side
Get together with a group of like minded people to drink, smoke pot, and hang out together outdoors, and call that a protest, and feel like they really accomplished something Get together with a group of like minded people to drink, smoke pot, and hang out together outdoors, and call that a barbeque, and know they accomplished absolutely nothing, even if they did it outside of some office building somewhere
Thinks what is important is passion and dedication Knows what matter is focus and determination, and that dedication isn’t about who shouts the loudest or whose positions are most extreme, it’s about who is willing to do whatever that takes, even if it means significant personal sacrifice and loss of individuality, to actually solve the problem.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.


Should the media report suicides?

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Should the media report suicides? Yes. Despite the received wisdom and long standing journalistic practice, the benefits of responsible and sensitive reporting of suicides outweigh the dubious “evidence” of suicide contagion. Here’s an overview of the issue.

First, I will quickly cover the practical issue of suicide reporting. Obviously, the media cannot cover every suicide. Sadly, there are simply too many. Media outlets would be publishing little else. So we are not asking ourselves whether they all should be reported.

Instead, we ask ourselves whether some suicides should be reported. [1]

The most commonly cited reason to avoid reporting on suicides is the idea of suicide contagion. This phenomenon is well documented in the scientific literature of psychology and sociology, and while there is some dissent, for decades the phenomenon has been cited as sufficient reason to maintain the taboo.

But a cursory look at the literature supporting the idea that suicide contagion is a real concern reveals that the evidence is entirely statistical in nature. Direct evidence is impossible to attain. And given the complexity of the issue of suicide,  it would be irresponsible to base public policy or journalistic ethics on evidence which might just as easily be attributed to any number of other factors, such a demographic shifts, economic fluctuations, or even weather patterns.

Another argument in support of the taboo against reporting suicides is that it is done out of respect for the feelings of the family of the victim. And nobody is arguing that seeing their loved one’s suicide reported in the media does not risk making a bad situation worse for the people involved.

But I don’t think that is what is really going on here.  I think what is really going on is that the media simply doesn’t want to report on suicides. It’s a depressing subject that nobody likes to talk or think about, and the media reflects that.

And it’s not exactly the sort of thing that sells papers, either.

It’s not just a media taboo. It’s a societal taboo. The media doesn’t want to talk about it and the public does not want to hear about it. But that which is ignored becomes stigmatized, and the last thing a suicidal person needs is more reasons to feel isolated and ashamed.

Instead of contributing to this harmful taboo, the media should be working to destroy it as only they can. By reporting on suicides, the media can send a message to potential suicides that they are not alone in their depression, that others have gotten to that point, and that there are ways out available and that their situation is not as hopeless as it may seem right now.

Compared to that, using some statistical blip or a cheap dodge about respecting the feelings of the family to justify continuing to avoid dealing with the subject cannot be seen as anything other than dereliction of the duty of journalism to bring light to the dark areas of society, and to give media consumers not just what they want but what they need.

At one point, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and any number of other examples of social harm labored under similar taboos. It upsets people, they said. People don’t want to hear about it. It will only make a bad situation worse.

But thanks to brave journalists willing to buck the taboo and drag those issues into the light and force the public to deal with them,  society had to take a long look at itself,. and decide what was truly important.

Finally, on a personal note, as someone who has been suicidal, I can that that for me, media coverage would have meant very little to me at the time. My depression was so profound that very little from the outside world penetrated my mind at all. It was like a storm raging in my mind that drowned out everything else.

So watching a media story about someone committing suicide would not have made me any more likely to do it. When I was that depressed, it would have made less of an impact than a hiccup in a hurricane.

But what might have helped is if, after the story, there had been a phone number or website where some kind person could have offered me the help I needed in order to climb out of that dark black hole.

I was lucky. I made it out on my own. I don’t know what it was that kept me from walking blindly into traffic, like I had fantasied about so many times, but I managed to keep myself alive and, eventually, find the help I needed.

But I might have found that help a lot sooner and a lot faster if I had seen something about suicide in the media. And my story is not unique.

Not only should the media report suicides (in an appropriate and responsible way), it has a clear duty to do so. They can help like nobody else can.

Fight the taboo. Talk about suicide.

It could save lives.

References listed in order of use in article :

Navaneelan, T. (n.d.). Suicide rates: An overview. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-624-x/2012001/article/11696-eng.htm

Phillips, D., & Carstensen, L. (1986). Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television News Stories about Suicide. The New England Journal of Medicine, 315(11), 685-689. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from http://kwantlen.summon.serialssolutions.com.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/?s.q=Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television News Stories about Suicide&spellcheck=true#!/search/document?ho=t&l=en&q=Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television

Phillips, D., & Carstensen, L. (1986). Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television News Stories about Suicide. The New England Journal of Medicine,315(11), 685-689. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from http://kwantlen.summon.serialssolutions.com.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/?s.q=Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television News Stories about Suicide&spellcheck=true#!/search/document?ho=t&l=en&q=Clustering of Teenage Suicides after Television News Stories About Suicide
Shuttleworth, M. (n.d.). Confounding Variable / Third Variable. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from https://explorable.com/confounding-variables
Ladurantaye, S. (2012, October 12). How the taboo against reporting on suicide met its end. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/conditions/how-the-taboo-against-reporting-on-suicide-met-its-end/article4181695/?page=all
O’Neill, B. (2012, April 17). Deconstructing the taboo of suicide. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://blog.thenewstribune.com/bluebyline/2012/04/17/deconstructing-the-taboo-of-suicide/
Arthur, R. (2012, December 28). 10 Ways Social Taboos About Sex, Drugs and Death Scare Us from Learning the Truth. Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://www.alternet.org/culture/10-ways-social-taboos-about-sex-drugs-and-death-scare-us-learning-truth
Basian, C. (2011, February 8). A Brief History of Taboo. Retrieved December 30, 2015, from http://theeyeopener.com/2011/02/a-brief-history-of-taboo/
100 Information Heroes. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://heroes.rsf.org/en/
TESTIMONIALS PHONE SERVICE. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2015, from http://crisiscentre.bc.ca/distress-phone-services/testimonials/
Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. The question of which ones to report lies outside the purview of this article.↵

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO

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Gonna do my best to actually get caught up on my videos today. Got eight left. Seems like a reasonable amount. And when I have caught up, it will be time to start making them again, at least occasionally.

I do kind of miss it.

First, we have me talkin’ about an issue that readers of this blog will recognize as a perennial one for me :

Namely, how the heck to go about being smart without being a dick but also without being ashamed of an asset. I recognize that there is a compulsive, cramped, neurotically self-analyzing quality to the question itself. Listening to myself talk about it gives me a strong feeling that I am chasing my own tail and the whole thing is wrongheaded from the getgo somehow.

The easy answer would be to say I should just be myself and let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe it really is that simple.

And now, some music accompanied by pictures of adorable animals doing adorable things.

Warning : fairly loud, and gets louder and more insistent as it goes.

Par for the course, really. Love the WKRP quote at the end, though. Jennifer (Loni Anderson) really was perfect. She was like an angel of blondeness. An avatar of the light side of the blond.

Kind of depressed today. But whatever. It’s only temporary and I know things to do to pull myself out of the morass. Clothes really do seem to make a profound difference. Right now I am lounging about naked because I haven’t finished doing the laundry yet. As a result, I feel all mentally flabby and formless and weak. I really do need some kind of container in order to pull myself together and feel connected and strong. Otherwise, I am semisolid at best.

I suppose I will know I have truly succeeded in growing a skeleton and committing to it when I feel just as strong hanging around naked as I do when I am fully dressed and put together.

In the meantime, I am going to sip ice water, hang with the fuzzies, and do my words.

More music please :

Two minutes. Impressive. I am glad I managed to rein in my UTBD (Urge To Be Done) that far. It’s sad to think that I have been producing substandard art for a long time simply because I am too eager for that feeling of accomplishment and release that comes from being DONE.

Explains why I have such trouble with going back to something and improving it too. That would take said thing from “done” to “not done”, and what could be worse than that?

I am improving over time, though. Eventually I will get to the point where I am mature and strong enough to let myself get lost in the process and not be in such a hurry to get to the “good part”. Writing, editing, revising… it can all be rewarding in and of itself if I just slow myself down and surrender to process. Have a little faith that, despite not being able to see the end from where I am, there will be one eventually, and therefore I am not “trapped”.

I’m just wandering. I’m still safe. Home is right here when I need it.

Next up, a very tired but happy post-Vcon me rambles on for a while.

Love that story.

Part of my problem with staying pulled together and coherent is the whole bed-seeking thing. The bed is so close and so tempting. The addiction is bad enough that I have actually caught myself feeling nostalgic for the time before I went back to school, when I could laze around to my heart’s content.

I take that as a good sign. It means that I have fully entered the school experience. It is requiring enough of an effort of me that I feel tired, and that’s a good thing. Way better than having all this energy bouncing around in my head making me insane.

And now, I lazily solve terrorism.

That little talk seems different after the Paris attacks. It’s no less true, of course, because the reasoning is flawless. If we refuse to be afraid of them, refuse to even recognize them as having any sort of political justification or religious cause or anything. Treat terrorists as the aberrant freaks that they are, and refused to let them goad you into chasing them down in a mad furor. That’s exactly what the little boy who gives the hotfoot to the giant wants. Refuse to give it to him.

ISIS is different. They are an army, with soldiers and tanks and money. It’s true they want to goad everyone into action, but in their case, action is actually justified because they are no small band of terrorists, they are, in effect, an occupying power, and we kind of have rules against people redrawing borders via force.

We’re really not fond of it.

Aw crap, I missed one earlier and I don’t have the mental wherewithal to figure out how to put it where it belongs. It will have to do go here.

Hmmm. I thought that was the one I recorded while actually at Vcon, but no. That is clearly my room, the one that I am sitting in as I type this. Hmmm.

As for myself, I know that I am an unorthodox thinker and I might well have a lot of paradigm shattering ideas. The problem is, I don’t even know what the paradigms are.

I don’t see the box.

Aaand finally, two more musical moments.

First, one that wandered off somewhere. But don’t worry, I got it back.

Hmmm. Pretty middle of the road for me. Nothing great about it, nothing terrible about it. It’s a meh.

And finally, I hope you liked those pictures of bad design choices, because here’s more of them :

And now, an excuse to go punch a shadow in the dick.

Well, that’s it, I am all caught up now. Time to do video #400. Soon, I promise.

But right now, bed needs me in it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Intro to Journalism (JOUR 1160) Blog Post (rough draft), On Reporting Suicides

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Reference URLs : Guide to Reporting on Suicide

The Science Behind Suicide Contagion

Robin Williams death: How should the media report a suicide?

Suicides After Media Reporting (academic)

Suicide Clusters : A reconsideration

 

Media suicide coverage debated

Trisha Cook : Media and Suicides

Why doesn’t the media cover suicides often?

Media and Internet Use Is A Predictor Of Suicide In Japan

Whenever there is a suicide reported in the media, the question arises as to whether it is ethical to report suicides at all. What if it inspires copycat suicides? But I think these fears are overblown, and I think the media reporting of suicides is both ethical and impossible to avoid.

The phenomenon of reported suicides inspiring other suicides is know academically as “suicide clusters”, and there is a lot of well respected research as well as thoughtful and professional analyses by people in the media supporting the phenomenon. However,  this conclusion has not gone unchallenged,

The interpretations drawn from this research (assuming the pro-cluster side is valid) are questionable. Even if some people’s chance of committing suicide is elevated by media reports, an equal or greater number of suicides could be prevented by raising awareness about suicide and its warning signs.

So it’s not a matter of whether to report suicides, it’s a matter of how. There exist very sensitive and thoughtful guides about how to report a suicide, and as long as these guidlines are followed, there should be no moral objection to the reporting of suicides.

And in this Internet-saturated era, there is no way to control information, so total suppression is not a option. If the media didn’t report suicides, it would not prevent depressed people from hearing about it. Even in the pre-Internet era, it was problematic. Suicide rips a hole in the social fabric of a community, and that loss is bound to cause an undeniable ripple effect that will do the media’s job quite efficiently.

And then people are left wondering why their local media is “ignoring the story”.

That effect is multiplied beyond all recognition with the advent of Facebook, Twitter, email, and all the rest. The Internet is the most efficient form of social communication ever known, and all it takes is one media outlet, or prominent blogger, or major Twitter account, to share the story of the suicide before any media outlet that doesn’t report it looks like they are deliberately ignoring the story out of callous disrespect for human life.

For these, and many other points I will think of later, I think that it is not only acceptable for the media to report suicides, it is necessary, and even inevitable.

Sunday video etc.

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This has seriously become the way I deal with needed to blog but not feeling like it or having any idea what to write.

I will run out of videos soon, though. Guess I will just have to start making them again!

First up, we have an unusual music based video for me, because the music isn’t by me.

It’s by my man MC 900 Foot Jesus.

I made this video because I wanted to link to the song in a blog entry about my idea of religion, and to my shock, it wasn’t on YouTube at all. To me, that was a crime. So not only did I do it because I wanted to link it, I also did it because, for the first time I can recall, I was in a position where I could contribute to the public good by making something available that was previously inaccessible. To do what others had done for me countless times over.

And that felt good. Of course, it didn’t take long for it to be flagged as third party content. But I don’t care. If they make me take it down, fine. I did my part.

And speaking of third party content, here’s my silly interpretive lyrics take on an American classic :

I really have no idea if those are funny or not. They seem funny to me, but that’s no guarantee. I think it’s very audience dependent. It’s funny if they have some notion of what the lyrics are supposed to be. Or if you go all out, like I did on this video for Black Rain :

Who knows, maybe a future “thing” to occupy me on Saturdays will be to make a high quality video like that one. I must say, I am quite proud of it. And it tested well.

Next up, we have a bit of music I did as an experiment :

Specifically, I said to myself, I said “Self, I am going to make a song just using the four traditional instruments : drums, bass, lead guitar, and ‘voice’. ” And that’s what I did. It’s not exactly a brilliantly effective piece, but it was fun trying to think like a band, so to speak.

I plan on trying it again some day. I have always wanted to do “real” sounding music, in other words, music that sounds like the music we hear all the time. Synth is great but what I really want, deep down, is to make music that sounds like an actual real live band filled with actual people made it.

But, you know, made by me alone, because I have issues.

The ultimate goal would be to make my own orchestral music. I feel like that is within my grasp and it’s just a matter of finding my way there somehow.

It’s odd how art can be like that. How you can feel like you have everything you need to do something, and theoretically you could totally do it, but you still have to cross that patch of ground between where you are and where it is.

In can be very frustrating.

Next up, I bitch about sleep. Big surprise.

Things haven’t really changed since then. But to be brutally honest, I am not nearly as “good” about using the CPAP as I should be. I often get up in the middle of the night to pee then “forget” to put the thing back on. And I never wear it when I nap.

This is clearly an area where I need to tighten the fuck up and stop being such a jagoff. It’s not like when the thing is on, I am hating every moment of it. I can pretty much totally ignore it. It’s actually kind of soothing. And yet, something in me, some petulant loser-ish part of me, still resists it.

And quite frankly, I am sick of it.

Oh right… sorry my eyes are pits of unholy darkness for much of that vid. Bad lighting.

And now, more music!

Pretty standard stuff for me. Not great, not bad. Fun. Pleasant. It’s formulaic, but that’s not always a bad thing. Some formulae are pretty damned effective.

Choose five samples that work together. Layer in, layer out in a different order. It works.

Here’s the next piece of music from my overflowing music making machine :

Today’s been pretty dull. Slept in. Got up. Ate while watching Scrubs. Came in here. Started blogging.

Oh, and activated my new credit card, the one that will draw from my new bank account from Vancity. It came in the mail recently and I am thrilled to see it, because it means that I will soon be fully out of the clutches of Money Mart with all their gouging fees. All I have to do is switch my Netflix and Fatcow accounts after my next cheque, and the people at Money Mart can kiss my ass goodbye. Wish I had done this years ago, would have saved me a lot of money.

But it took me a really long time to get over my mistrust of banks. Banks never wanted my business anyhow.

Aaaand finally, one last piece of music. Warning, it’s one of my weirder pieces, so… some of the noises might seem a tad harsh at normal volume.

Don’t ask me what the deal is with me and whales.

Fun fact : That noise you hear at the beginning and throughout the piece is not the sound of some ancient modem connecting. It’s actually the sound of the rings of Saturn. That it what it would sound like if you could play the rings of Saturn like a record.

I feel like I need to do a third Space Whale type song just to complete the trilogy. I rather like the idea of developing the Space Whale as a sort of character in my music. Like there is this giant ancient wise being out there calling to others of its kind and we got to listen.

I’m kind of deep that way.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.