August 8, 2008

Potluck

Yesterday I started the following blog entry…

Some f***ing motherf***er made caffeinated coffee in the decaf pot yesterday at work. I know this because a) the coffee tasted better than usual and b) my head feels like 1000 jackbooted thugs are holding marching drills on the backs of my eyeballs. I wish I could pour scalding hot coffee over the head of whomever is responsible for hijacking the decaf pot. Hey asshole, some of us get migraines if we have have caffeine. There are THREE other pots you can use to make caffeinated coffee. One for one blend, one for another and one for double-strength. Keep that poison out of the pot marked DECAF. God…

Anyhow, seeing as how my head is killing me so badly, I can’t string two coherent thoughts together in a row right now. This means that today’s blog installment is going to be a potluck, a smorgasbord if you will. Prepare to be whelmed….

Recent Read: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - I have to admit I was nervous about reading this book. It is, after all, one notorious piece of literature. I knew that since it was written in 1955 and written by someone widely considered to be one of the great novelists of our day that it was not going to be kiddie porn, but, well, that’s sort of the reputation the book has. Be tough to write a story about sexual relationship between a 37-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl even today without people crying obscenity. The thing is though, I had seen Kubrick’s film adaptation of the book when I was going through a Kubrick phase and I had found the film to be anything but an advertisement for pedophilia. I felt that the film attempted to (as tastefully as possible) tell the story of a tragedy, the tragedy of being an adult with sexual development that has been stunted at a pubescent level and the tragedy of being a precocious, sexually adventurous “tween” and more than anything the tragedy of what happens when those two forces collide. 12 and 13 year old kids have sex. That’s a fact of life. Sure, they usually do it with other 12 and 13 year olds, granted, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happens. It’s something our culture doesn’t like to talk about, but it’s been true throughout the history of our species and is still legally accepted in many parts of the world. So, even after understanding that this book was not a celebration of pedophilia, why bother to read it?

For one thing, I had just finished reading another book by a classic Russian author about an unsavory situation, Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I think that was what finally motivated me to read Lolita. I have meant to give Nabokov a try for years and this was arguably his masterpiece. I had been impressed by Dostoevsky and it inspired me to try a more modern Russian author. Another thing was, I gotta admit, I was curious. What was all the fuss about, you know?

The book, ultimately, did not disappoint. It would have had I been looking to be turned on, but I wasn’t so it didn’t. The book was, frankly, poetry. The narrator, Humbert Humbert, is one of the most tragic figures I’ve ever read. A self-loathing, pathetic, creature who fully intends to keep his pedophile ways to himself, to admire Lolita from afar, until she seduces him, pretty much for fun, she having already lost her virginity at 12 at summer camp. Lest you think that Nabokov is in some way trying to portray H.H. as the victim, however, it is what follows that is the most heartbreaking. The gradual growing up of Lolita into an adult and the flowering of resentment towards Humbert while Humbert becomes more and more obsessed with her and his life unravels. As a novel, as a love story, and as an examination of this complex topic, this book has the power to disgust, to intrigue and to break your heart for both Humbert and Lolita. It’s a great novel and it’s sad that it’s pretty much consigned to being thought of as “dirty” in the eyes of many because it tells such an unusual and discomfiting story.

Brett Favre Traded to the New York Jets: OK, this is just wrong. I don’t understand what happened here. Brett wanted to come back into the league, the Packers held his contract. They didn’t want him back so he wanted to go to Minnesota. They couldn’t have that, but really had no leverage to stop him if he simply maintained his position. Eventually they had to give into his demands, put him on the field, or cut him (in which case he could sign with MN). Instead he caved in, decided he didn’t want to be a “disruption” and went to the Jets. The frakking Jets. The 4-12 Jets. Instead of maybe winning a Superbowl with Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Bernard Berrian, The Williams Wall, Chester Taylor, Steve Hutchinson, Matt Birk, Darren Sharper, a Vikings team that is strong at every position except QB, he’s going to struggle to take a pathetic franchise to a first-round wildcard playoff loss IF he’s lucky. With that line he’ll probably get injured. What a lousy way for a legend to end his career. Sad sad sad for football and stupid stupid stupid of Favre. He held all the cards and he let Thompson and McCarthy get their way. Un-fucking-believable.

iPhone - So I’m getting an iPhone. I’ve been contemplating it since the thing was introduced but now it’s finally happening. Whenever one is in stock, that is.

My major concern is whether or not the iPhone will be a realistic replacement for my iPod Classic 160GB, Palm Tungsten C and Motorola SLVR, the collection of devices I carry with me most days. There are trade-offs, that’s for sure.

The iPhone vs. the iPod Classic: The iPhone wins in terms of screen size and user-interface, but falls woefully short in the area of storage space. My iPod has literally 20X the storage of the iPhone I’m getting (the 8GB model). However, I can’t listen to all 60GB of my music collection in one day now, can I? So, I’ve decided to start using the iPhone as my listening device and my iPod as my backup of songs to listen to. I have some software called Floola that lets me arbitrarily take music on and off of the two devices so I should be able to load up the iPhone with 8GB or so of tunes/podcasts/movies/etc every few days and keep myself happy. The iPod will still accompany me on my daily routines but will be relegated to living in the backpack with the laptop.

The iPhone vs. the Palm: This is really not a fair comparison on the face of it. I mean, after all, the Tungsten is an aging little handheld PDA with a fairly primitive set of primitive apps and a tiny chiclet keyboard. I got it for $35 at an antique store, seriously. I use it primarily as an eBook reader, to play solitaire, for Internet access when my laptop isn’t around or would be inconvenient (the Palm has WiFi), and as a word processor. I wrote almost my entire NaNoWriMo novel last year on the Palm. For this purpose, as a word processor, it kicks the iPhone’s butt. For one, the Palm has a removable SD memory card and a Microsoft Word-compatible word processor. This means I can work on a file, save it, eject the card, put it in the card reader connected to another computer and continue working on the file. I do this all the time. The tiny keyboard is no biggie either because for $7 I bought a folding keyboard with normal-size keys that fits in my pocket and snaps into the bottom of the Palm. I can reach into my pocket, pull out the Palm and the keyboard and be writing in seconds at my full-typing speed. This is not possible with the iPhone. First off, the iPhone doesn’t have a full-fledged word processor that I’m aware of and even if it did, the on-screen touch typing could never be as fast as using a real keyboard, which the iPhone does not support. That’s right. Even though it supports Bluetooth and Bluetooth keyboards are available everywhere, the iPhone doesn’t support Bluetooth keyboards. So, where word-processing is concerned the score is iPhone 0, Palm 1. Where everything else is concerned it’s more like iPhone 200, Palm 0. I may keep the Palm and relegate it to the bag along with the iPod or I may part with it. We’ll see. If I can’t get much money for it I’ll probably just keep it for it’s mad word processing skillz.

The iPhone versus the Motorola SLVR: Please. Not even close. Everything the SLVR does, the iPhone does better. SLVR works with iTunes, so does the iPhone, but faster and with cover flow. SLVR plays music and 3GP video (which looks like crap), the iPhone is a multimedia powerhouse. The SLVR has a camera phone, the iPhone’s is better. The SLVR has over-priced mind-bogglingly slow Internet. The iPhone has 3G. The SLVR is a bit smaller, and has a removable MicroSD card slot which, for some reason only works right with cards up to 512MB in size. So, in theory, if you had your music stored on 16 MicroSD cards you could match the capacity of the iPhone 8GB and even surpass it by buying more cards. Tiny cards the size of a fingernail that you could lose so easily that it’s scary. I’ve used the hell out of my SLVR, I loved it for awhile, but this is not even close. The SLVR goes bye-bye.

The iPhone versus the iBook: Are you nuts? Of course I’m still keeping my laptop. This thing ain’t gonna replace that.

Now to move on to more blogging perpetrated today…

iPhone, Sushi and Cigars: Last night was fantastic. Got home and found that my order of cigars from Thompson had arrived. I got two 25-count boxes of Thompson Maduro box-pressed Dominican’s, as well as some Rocky Patel Olde World Reserves, Cusano 18’s, La Gloria Cubanas, Oliveros XLs, CAOs, Indios, Victor Sinclair 55’s, cedar-wrapped Arturo Fuentes, and a few other choice cigars, mostly maduros but some Connecticut wrappers. Mmmmmm… Filled both my humidors.

Then we went to the AT&T store and actually reserved an iPhone because last time we were there the staff said the direct fulfillment had been ended so that they could get some stock in the stores. Well, they called yesterday and told me that in fact it had been reinstated so I put in my order. Hopefully I’ll have an iPhone by this time next week.

To top it off, Es and I went out for sushi at Osaka. I went nuts and got every piece of nigiri that I like: tuna, salmon, scallop, shrimp, sweet shrimp, smoked salmon, salmon roe, smoked eel, yellowtail, octopus, mackerel, king crab, squid, and surf clam, as well as squid ginger yaki for an appetizer. Oh. So. Good.

This morning I learned that my appearance on the MN Atheist’s “Atheist Talk” show is now online.

Life is good.

Viewing 8 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    "12 and 13 year old kids have sex. That’s a fact of life. Sure, they usually do it with other 12 and 13 year olds, granted, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happens. It’s something our culture doesn’t like to talk about, but it’s been true throughout the history of our species and is still legally accepted in many parts of the world."

    So because 12 and 13 year olds have sex with each other, then are you saying that makes it easier to understand why an adult and a 12 or 13 year would have sex with each other?
    • ^
    • v
    What I'm saying is that there are cases where kids are sexualized by other kids. Adults should never take the role of sexualizing kids, that's wrong and it's an adults job to reign in those kinds of impulses. However, in terms of understanding pedophiles, I think that yes, child sexuality is part of understanding it.

    In the case of Humbert Humbert, his first love was a 12 year old girl when he himself was that age. As he aged, his sexual preference stayed stuck where it was. From this perspective, his 12-year-old sexuality is absolutely the key to understanding his lifelong obsession for girls of that age. It is stunted growth.

    From an evolutionary perspective, we are the only species that does not start procreating as soon as we reach sexual maturity. Waiting until a socially appropriate age to begin sexual activity is a very recent invention in our species, only a few thousand years old in the parts of the world where it is the case at all. This is to be weighed against millions of years of biologically driven behavior. If a 12 year old boy wants to have sex with a 35 year old woman, he might be acting on a biological imperative. It is not necessarily a one-sided situation.

    Now, I want to be very clear that I'm an NOT saying that this excuses adults in this situation or in any way justifies their behavior. Just because something stems from natural or evolutionary causes does not make it OK. That is the naturalistic fallacy. However, youthful sexuality does help in comprehending why such events and relationships take place.
    • ^
    • v
    I can kind of see what you are saying. However, children are born as sexual beings. Pedophilia is more of a seduction than a rape, no matter what the age of the child. That is why it is so confusing and distressing to children who have experienced it, because it is unwanted, yet it feels good.

    Furthermore, there is more to reaching sexual maturity than simply being able to have sex. Is a 12 year old female sexually mature? No way. Many 12 year old females are not even menstruating yet. Gestating, birthing and breastfeeding are part of sexuality. Our species has large headed offspring, which is why they are born about three months before they end their "fetal" stage (no other animal's offspring are born at such a helpless, immature stage of development). Therefore, I would argue that evolutionary driven sex occurs more around the age of 16, when the females hips have widened sufficiently to allow a baby to grow to a normal size, and to pass through the pelvis, and after her breasts have fully developed. Also, she is full grown by this age, so her own growth or the baby's growth would not be affected by a pregnancy, all the nutrients could go to the baby. If our species had started coupling off at 12 years old, the infants and the 12 year old mothers would have had a much higher rate of death during pregnancy and childbirth and our species would have suffered. They both may have had growth retardation if they did not have access to vast amounts of nutrients (which they wouldn't if another 12 year old was providing for them), which in turn would affect subsequent pregnancies. Also, a 12 year old would not have had a very high rate of success in breastfeeding her offspring due to both physical and mental immaturity. And a male 12 year old would not have been chosen, even by an older woman, because he would not have been able to hunt, build shelter, or do the things needed to keep his offspring alive. He would not be full grown, so he would want to eat all the food he managed to get.

    So, what I'm trying to say is, 16 or 17 is a much more biologically appropriate age to start having sex, and the development of our species reflects that this is true. Also, just because a 12 year old may be a sexual being, and may have experimented with sex with their peers, doesn't mean they are ready to have sex with a truly sexually mature adult. It is the same as having sex with a 10 year old, or a 7 year old. Those children may be sexual beings, they may have sexually experimented with their peers, but no one is ever ready for a sexual relationship where one person has all the power and another has none.
    • ^
    • v
    Just a little correction: I said that human babies are the least developed of all animals, but I meant they are the least developed of all primates. They are also comparatively underdeveloped when you look at most animal species, but not all, there are kangaroos after all, and perhaps some others :-)
    • ^
    • v
    I agree with you on pretty much everything you said. I think that 16 is a much more reasonable age of consent in most cases, for example. Although, if you looked at the map I linked to you would have noticed the following:

    Throughout the United States, the age of consent varies from 16-18, with 16 being the most common. This would indicate that for the most part your views are inline with the majority of the culture you live in. However, in South America, 14 years old is the most common with some areas as young as 13 or (in the case of Mexico) 12. This would seem to indicate that cultural norms are different in South America where sex is concerned. The majority of European countries follow the South American trend with 14 being the norm, with a few countries on the 13 or 15 side. The most common age of consent globally seems to be 16, but it ranges from 9 to 20.

    If nothing else, this indicates that there is only partial consensus on this subject.

    One thing I want to clarify. When I use the term "sexual maturity" I mean it in the strictly biological sense of being capable of reproduction. I don't mean being OPTIMALLY capable of reproduction (yes, a wider hipped, fuller breasted more matured woman is more capable of successfully birthing a child than a 12 year old who just started menstruating, but evolution rewards reproductive success, suboptimal or no), and I certainly don't mean it in the sense of being psychologically sexually mature. I don't believe that anybody can be psychologically defined as "mature" until they are at least 25, as this is the point at which our initial neural development completes.

    The interesting fact is that as a species we have removed our behaviours further and further away from our animal biology, but our animal biology and culture are still far from in sync. Because some girls are physically capable of reproduction at the age of 12 while others are not until the age of 14 or 15 but nearly all are by the age of 16, we have something of a consensus that it's somewhere around 16 for girls. A similar window exists for boys, with some being early bloomers and some late. Our societal definition of "adult" as 18 years old is one based on the idea that the majority are fairly certain to have reached physical adulthood by that age, although again there will be stragglers and those who were well ahead of the curve.

    The point is that Mexico, with their 12 year old age of consent, seems to be basing their decision on the early bloomers biologically. Interestingly, Spain is close behind them at 13.

    It's tough to know what to make of all of this beyond the fact that our culture and biology are both in flux, shaping each other, and that the attitudes about right and wrong here are all over the map.

    For my money, I would never want to be involved, sexually or otherwise, with anybody under 25, because I don't feel that you are truly an adult until at least that age.
    • ^
    • v
    There probably is not consensus on the age of sexual maturity because it varies culturally. In some areas of the world girls start menstruating at 9 years old, so I suppose by 12 they are sexually mature. But, there is just so much more involved in successful reproduction then the act of sex, that I still think you have to look at all the factors when making this decision. I think we have to look at the age of "optimal" sexual maturity, not whether or not sex might be possible.

    Also, I think whenever anyone is under age 18, we have to look at the age discrepancy between the two parties. If a guy in his 30's is having sex with 12 year olds, that weird and creepy no matter how sexually mature she is. If my 18 year old son has sex with a 16 year old, I don't want him to be sent to jail over it because they are peers. So, I think that you can't just factor in sexual maturity, but how much older the other person is and how much power they hold over the younger person.
    • ^
    • v
    Flying in the face of other commenters, I won't comment on Lolita except to say that your description of it reminds me a little of Luc Besson's film Leon, which I saw as a teenager, and which blew me away.

    Instead, I'd like to say this: I associate cigars with two people:

    1. J. Jonah Jameson
    2. Groucho Marx

    Both characters are insanely cool, but you're messin' with my mental image of you, Ryan! Even at your angriest, as above, I somehow picture you sitting Sukhasana on a hardwood floor, MacBook Pro floating before you should inspiration strike, crickets chirping peacefully in the background. Somehow, replacing the joss stick incense with a cigar... it's just not working for me!

    Stay cool.
    • ^
    • v
    I'm a multi-faceted guy, what can I say?

    Here I am with a pipe:

    <img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/215/491402366_4d1b4e3b6f.jpg?v=0">

    Here I am with a fish:

    </img><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1264/549256969_df47355c7c.jpg?v=0">

    Here I am with a guitar:

    </img><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1002/799535326_6c82ea9bcd.jpg?v=0">

    Here I am in a river:

    </img><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1327/860709515_e4513789eb.jpg?v=0">

    And in New York City:

    </img><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1301/1093473898_7e8927e415.jpg?v=0">

    See? Many facets! :-)</img>
 
close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus


Trumpet Marine