Stuck on Repeats

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

I generally think that most "Buy this product and you'll have done something good about X" solutions are bullshit -- everything from pink ribbons to Priuses to carbon offsets to labeled organic foods in supermarkets. If your contribution to a solution is buying, you're engaging in a uniquely American way of thinking you're improving the world without really giving anything up in the transaction.

I aspire to saying "no" to Cub Scout popcorn and Girl Scout cookies and marching band wrapping paper. I'd rather just write a check for things I want to see more of in the world. I don't always succeed, but I do it often enough to feel a sense of moral superiority to guys with yellow bracelets and (RED) iPods.

I don't really give a shit about Armstrong except I hold out hope he'll experience some kind of redemption other than the tearful book tour kind, which I fear is all we have left.

How does buying organic foods fit into this scenario? Don't most people buy organic foods because they believe that buying foods without pesticides, even trace amounts of pesticides, is better for you than buying food with pesticides?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

How does buying organic foods fit into this scenario? Don't most people buy organic foods because they believe that buying foods without pesticides, even trace amounts of pesticides, is better for you than buying food with pesticides?

It occurred to me that I may have sounded as if I were tooting my own horn a bit.

Horses are herd animals and the instinct for herding cattle seems to come naturally. When I was doing the sorting, after the number was called out and I seprated that beeve from its bretheren, the horse kinda seemed like he knew what to do. Other than the number stapped to his side, there was nothing really to distinguish this steer from another. He looked like he might me tasty some day on a bun with mustard, ketchup, onion, and some jalapeno.

I just held on.

To my knowledge my horse had not doped. His grain is Purina, though, so you never know.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

How does buying organic foods fit into this scenario? Don't most people buy organic foods because they believe that buying foods without pesticides, even trace amounts of pesticides, is better for you than buying food with pesticides?

They do, but they're wrong.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Shape Shifter

I'm sure you don't Support Our Troops, either.

Commie.

it's not that he doesn't support the troops, he thinks they are misapplied. IIRC Atticus feels that 9/11 was a simple crime, and since the criminals died, we should move on.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

How does buying organic foods fit into this scenario? Don't most people buy organic foods because they believe that buying foods without pesticides, even trace amounts of pesticides, is better for you than buying food with pesticides?

I think most people that buy organic food do so because they have excess moneys and they aren't the sort that would plow that back in to more exclusive single malts.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I think most people that buy organic food do so because they have excess moneys and they aren't the sort that would plow that back in to more exclusive single malts.

I can't wait to hear reports of your concersations with your daughter after she's in Brooklyn for a while. And she WILL end up in Brooklyn.

I feel your pain, man.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

I generally think that most "Buy this product and you'll have done something good about X" solutions are bullshit -- everything from pink ribbons to Priuses to carbon offsets to labeled organic foods in supermarkets. If your contribution to a solution is buying, you're engaging in a uniquely American way of thinking you're improving the world without really giving anything up in the transaction.

I aspire to saying "no" to Cub Scout popcorn and Girl Scout cookies and marching band wrapping paper. I'd rather just write a check for things I want to see more of in the world. I don't always succeed, but I do it often enough to feel a sense of moral superiority to guys with yellow bracelets and (RED) iPods.

I don't really give a shit about Armstrong except I hold out hope he'll experience some kind of redemption other than the tearful book tour kind, which I fear is all we have left.

L'Chaim.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally Posted by dtb

You are so right. In the shower this evening (yes, Tolstoy has been showering with me...), I considered how AK was like a soap opera, minus the big hair and excessive cheese factor. But the reason those sorts of dramas (in whatever form, tv, novel, etc.) are popular, is that they speak to the human experience on some level.

How accurate the "translation" (from art-form to one's own life experience) differentiates the ok from the sublime.

Fuck Russian "literature." Every other god damned word of it tranlates to "REVENGE!"

I was once asked to join a pool team of Russians perhaps because my name is "Russ" (outable?!).

I was flattered, but I had to decline. Lev and Vadim may have tried to move a couch into my office or some shit.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

They do, but they're wrong.

"Conventional fruits and vegetables did have more pesticide residue, but the levels were almost always under the allowed safety limits"

People who buy organic don't believe that the "allowed safety limits" are legitimate, but are Monsanto-lobbied BS limits.

[Vadim]

Originally Posted by Shape Shifter

Fuck Russian "literature." Every other god damned word of it tranlates to "REVENGE!"

I was once asked to join a pool team of Russians perhaps because my name is "Russ" (outable?!).

I was flattered, but I had to decline. Lev and Vadim may have tried to move a couch into my office or some shit.

Nyet, Pool Boy - in Soviet Russia, couch move you!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Everyone will mainly agree that I am mostly correct when say that Sebby's shtick is pure short-sighted self-interest concealed under (faux) jaded cynicism. What's your excuse?

I wish. It's more along the lines of Carlin's observation, "scratch a cynic and you'll find a demoralized idealist." (Or something like that... I'm not googling it.)

I honestly do believe there is no point in assessing the actions of hyper successful people, in sports, or business, or politics, on a morality scale. It's simply inapplicable. The uber-successful, they are different than you and I... In most instances, it's in deciding, early on, that things like morality are ambition constipation. They only hold you back from taking that massive dump on society that leaves you ten pounds lighter and ten miles faster than The Rest, allowing you to speed ahead of the herd.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Shape Shifter

God DAMN I miss a sex life.

Bitch bitch bitch. You're still getting more than 80% of people married with kids.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Shape Shifter

So I almost hooked up with a chick last weekend.

She was kind of chubby, but cute, and it was clear she knew her way around horses.

We met on a trail ride together at the Cowboy Church. She sought me out later in the afternoon to see if I'd want to ride with her later. I did and we rode around the flats surrounding Bod Sandlin Lake. The wind was blowing hard in the grass and it was very pretty.

She asked me my background and I told her. Then she told me hers. She grew up in Montana, ran horses, married a guy who went down to TX, split with him, hooked up with a guy too soon and had his baby.

I was down for fucking her, chubbiness and all, until I saw her husband. He's a tall dude, and there are some major teeth issues, so when you're short like I am you can't help but stare at those horrendous gums and wonder WTF?!

You got drunk enough that you almost fucked the horse?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Shape Shifter

Fuck Russian "literature." Every other god damned word of it tranlates to "REVENGE!"

Lolita?

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

"Conventional fruits and vegetables did have more pesticide residue, but the levels were almost always under the allowed safety limits"

People who buy organic don't believe that the "allowed safety limits" are legitimate, but are Monsanto-lobbied BS limits.

Right. I have no idea whether the allowed safety limits are too high or just right, but I do recall that the "allowed safety limits" for asbestos in the 1940s turned out to be problematic. But regardless, it seems to me that buying organic food is more of a selfish act rather than a way to purchase your conscience clean, as Atticus suggests.