Actual Action Ranty Rant #1

As a Mad Scientist, the temptation to unleash my wrath upon those who annoy or piss me off is sometimes very great indeed. As such, I usually try to sleep on it when my spleen feels to need exploding, and if I'm still a handsome kettle of seething rage in the morning I figure it's worth letting fly (zeppelin!). I've even had 3 donuts and a burger and a half (unfortunately I didn't have the donuts when I had the burgers, so I couldn't use them as a bun. That would've been delicious!) to make absolutely sure I wasn't just cranky from low blood sugar or some such crap like that.

However, the thing that currently has me so pissed off is rather too public for actual action, so I'm going to have to let the following Ranty Rant suffice.

This rant regards the overpriced and overpretentious grocery store Whole Foods. I will begin by disclosing that I do go to Whole Foods to buy turkey sausages (Toaster doesn't eat cows because they never did anything to him, nor pork because it didn't deserve the ill fate of being so tasty; venison, however, is fair game) because they are the same price as Trader Joe's, and they have chorizo, which is delicious. I also buy bulk grains there. With that in hand, I am going to tint this window with a slight hue of hypocrisy.

As I was leaving Whole Foods with a paper bag loudly telling me how it's 100% recycled and that I should definitely recycle it as soon as I possibly could (green-washing, anyone?), I noticed that they were selling canvas grocery bags with the (paraphrased) words: "FEED THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD!"

For real. Now, first note that I don't have a problem with the message emblazoned on the bag, because yes, the children of the world should be fed, and so should the adults and geezers. However, note secondly that I have a huge problem with this kind of fake socioenvironmentalist bullshit. Thirdly, I also have a problem with the kind of bougie asshat who buys that kind of shit and then prances around like the sun shining out their ass has given them an orgasmic wedgie*. They are a bunch of plinking facile douchebag noodley rotten overtan lardass colostomy bags.

Some bougie motherfucker who has never really been truly hungry** is going to go to Whole Foods, which specializes in petroleum-drenched, overpriced, overproduced food flown in from developing countries all over the world, pay a premium on their groceries so that they can feel better about the rest of their wastefulness, and then on their way out to their newer model SUV note that they shop there often enough to need a canvas bag. So they buy the one with the socially aware message that gives $2 to some humanitarian aid organization so that they can feel additionally special and like they're saving the world when in reality, if they'd walked their fat asses to Trader Joe's or Kroger they could have helped a hell of a lot more hungry children by donating the money they'd saved directly to the same organization.

This is fake concern at it's worst. These bougie asshats are the very same who patronize bullshit coffeehouses and walk around with their thumbs firmly lodged up their asses, listening to their iPods and looking down their nose at everyone around them (seriously, the next person who tries to talk to me with one or both of their earbuds still in their ears is going to have to extract said earbuds from his sinuses). I've listened to their shallow bullshit conversations in the past and I avoid overhearing them anymore because I inevitably feel a strong urge to kick them in the throats because all it is is a bunch of sophmoric swaddle about how each of them is hipper than the last ("OMG [wait, remember you're too hip for that, but play it cool like you're being ironic], check out these new shoes [puff on cloves cigarette], they cost, like, $100 [it's OK, daddy gave me a credit card] but they were fair trade [adjust boutique vintage hat] and made with organic cotton!" like it's pixie unicorn dust magic). People who bitch and moan that they're starving when all they've had is a motherfucking latte in the past 4 hours and now they need some motherfucking hummus and organic whole wheat crackers. The people who buy a bag saying "FEED THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD" and fill it with food taken from those children's countries***. Not to mention that they're buying this shit while children starve right here in this country.

This isn't coming across nearly as angry as I feel it. I tried not to resort to unbroken streams of cursing and eleventies. Hmm...maybe /RANTFAIL.


*Wonder what kind of search terms that's going to get me. Here's a chaser for your mental image.
**What I mean here is the kind of hungry that you get when you don't have food and can't afford it and can smell someone else's tasty lunch and your stomach has absolutely nothing in it at all and is knotted up and chewing on itself. I mean the kind of hungry you get after weeks of watered-down food. I'd like to see one of these bougie bastards try to make it just 24h with no food at all, and no motherfucking replacement power shakes or other such bullshit. Maybe then they wouldn't have such stupid ideals for skinniness.
***Look at many tropical countries that grow commodity foods such as plantains, pomegranite, etc. to export to post-industrial countries that then have to import essential foods from industrial agriculture in those post-industrial countries. A good example of this may be El Salvador and the U.S..

Lunch with Microbiologists

The general populance needs to grow up.

Organisms get sick. Sometimes they die. And most are filled with mushy networks of organs and other various liquids and goos.

But the general, non-biologically-inclined, public seems hellbent on ignoring the most basic aspects of their own constitutions. In general, people wait until something is wrong and then go to a doctor and treat them like a plumber for a quick fix, like some lug nuts and a prescription can cure anything. It seems to me that it would be much wiser to go ahead and learn about the workings of one's own body in the first place so that the states of health, disease, and the various shades between can be better recognized and dealt with.

But maybe that's unreasonable, that'd require comprehensive and well-funded science education, as well as curiosity and a willingness to learn.

Or at least to be less squeamish. I've found that people in general really hate it when they're reminded that the meat on their plate came from a living animal, as if it reminds them on their own animal-ness somehow, or their responsibility in the death of another living organism despite their vaunted culture and whatnot.

So basically, I was at a joint lab lunch today with a bunch of animal researchers and microbiologists. Didn't happen today, because the restaurant was kind of empty and our table was kind of isolated. But to hear these more experienced scientists recount the disgust with which non-scientist people greet their work-related discussions kind of bothers me. I could understand a table of non-scientists getting up and walking away if we were gleefully debating the best ways to exsanguinate a mouse or to homogenize a tissue as though they were activities we look forward to as if they were cookies. However, in general, scientists discuss their research in respectful tones, and obfuscate their topics with jargon. But as soon as some soccer mom hears about taking fecal samples or sections of the anthrum for histology, she suddenly loses her appetite. Is it really so disgusting to be reminded that living things poop?

I guess that is one of the "greatest" talents of the human animal:
Self-delusion.

Collectively, we dupe ourselves into believing that we are beyond biology simply by grace of being human. Somehow, being human means trying really hard to ignore poop, pee, sweat, smegma, snot, puke, spit, and any of the various fluids produced by our genitalia. And we take it even further with our obsessions over clothing and shaving and hair styles.

A dog simply doesn't care if its hair is fashionably stylized so long as its not uncomfortable. Most bodily secretions provide very useful information to most animals. But we hide all of ours away to the point where we have deluded ourselves to the point where we think we are completely separate and above nature. How convenient it is to forget that the food on our plate, be it flesh or vegetable, was grown out in a field somewhere, nourished by the sun and soil! I guess that doesn't much matter though, when >50% of our body mass came from high fructose corn syrup...