Douchebag of the Week #2 (Strom Thurmond)

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I thought it would be appropriate to name Strom Thurmond today's Douchebag of the Week.  Thurmond, the most vocal and vitriolic opponent of civil rights reform and one of the longest serving senators of American history, was undeniably one of the biggest douchebags of all time. 

After retiring from the military, Thurmond became the governor of South Carolina, arguably the most backward state in the Union, historically speaking.  Thurmond split from the Democratic Party after the liberal reforms of FDR and Truman, and first ran for President on a third party ticket for the States' Rights Democratic Party on a platform of preserving segregation.  One of his most famous campaign speeches includes his statement: "I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigga race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."  Idiocy, mindlessness, ignorance, and hatred ooze from every word. 

He became South Carolina's state senator for an uninterrupted 46 years, although he switched to the Republican Party during the early '60s when civil rights debate firmly established it as the conservative party.  In 1957, Thurmond set the still-unbroken record of the longest lone filibuster of American history, where he stood speaking for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes to delay civil rights legislation.  He played a significant role in the election campaign of Richard Nixon in 1968 because of Nixon's earlier opposition to racial justice and desegregation in the South. 

Thurmond's prominent political career was centered solely on fighting civil rights legislation and desegregation.  Although he remained in the Senate until 2002, he was politically insignificant after complete Southern desegregation, beyond being the oldest member of Congress.  It was later revealed that as a young man, he had fathered a child with a teenage black house maid who worked for his family.  A figure of hatred, racism, and a disgustingly backward approach to social questions, Thurmond was appointed by the people of South Carolina to represent them without fail and with little opposition until he was one hundred years old.

More than almost anyone else in American history, Strom Thurmond embodied the true spirit of unfettered douchebaggery.  Fortunately for us all, he was defeated by reason, progress, compassion, and death.  He was the epitome of the object of Dr. King's statement, "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."  He is the second week's Douchebag of the Week. 

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Food For Thought

"Insanity in individuals is rare- but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule."-Friedrich Nietzsche

Surprise, Surprise: Male Insecurity

Sigmund Freud was the first to suggest the idea that "macho attitudes" and affinity for things of large size among males were linked to insecurity with their masculinity and "other things" of a small size.  More recently, a Cornell research study has found evidence that this is true.

The study was conducted on both male and female students, where the subjects had their masculinity or femininity (respectively) questioned or threatened by the researchers through remarks about their lack of supposedly masculine or feminine characteristics.  They found that men who were made to feel insecure about their masculinity were more likely to support the war in Iraq, display homophobic attitudes, and be interested in purchasing an SUV.  Interest in other types of cars were unchanged.  Women were unaffected, whether they received positive or negative feedback. 

This confirms Freud's idea of "male overcompensation," where men feel the need to make up for their own inadequacies with what they perceive to be "masculine attributes."  These include homophobia, a pro-war stance, and ownership of a large vehicle.  The men were also found to be more ashamed, guilty, hostile, and upset when their masculinity was put into question.  It certainly is amusing, seeing as how the "manly man" is expected to not openly reveal such feminine weaknesses like, God forbid, emotion.  Ironically, our inflated male pride propped up in order to conceal our deflated self esteem stems from those very emotional responses we aren't supposed to be feeling. 

So, next time a man adopts a belligerent stance where he feels the need to prop himself up by trying to appear hypermasculine, remember: he isn't necessarily a right-wing, bigoted war-mongerer.  He might just be feeling a bit small.

Frogs Raining From The Sky

Yes, it is true.  Frogs can rain from the sky. 

There have been a number of instances in recorded history where frogs, fish, worms, jellyfish, and other small animals have reportedly fallen from the sky in large numbers during heavy rainfall.  For example, Scientific American reported in 1873 that Kansas City, MO, had experienced a rainstorm that left the city covered in frogs.  Frogs and toads also fell from the sky onto Minneapolis in July of 1901.  A news item stated: "When the storm was at its highest... there appeared as if descending directly from the sky a huge green mass. Then followed a peculiar patter, unlike that of rain or hail. When the storm abated the people found, three inches deep and covering an area of more than four blocks, a collection of a most striking variety of frogs... so thick in some places [that] travel was impossible."  As recently as last June, hordes of frogs fell from the sky over Rákóczifalva, Hungary.

Oftentimes, the frogs land alive, suggesting that they had not traveled through the air for any extensive period of time, but others are killed on impact or land encased in solid blocks of ice.  There have even been instances of nothing but scattered, frozen body parts raining from the sky. 

The scientific explanations of this phenomenon are untested and hazy at best.  It was believed that strong winds can, on rare occasions, sweep up these animals in large numbers and carry them over distances, where they fall with rain.  More recently, however, another hypothesis with greater support by the evidence has been put forth.  The idea is that tornadic waterspouts, caused by wind patterns that usually cause tornadoes passing over bodies of water, can lift frogs, fish, and other animals up into the air to be deposited when the tornado dissipates.  This explains why raining animals are primarily aquatic and why their bodies are occasionally torn to pieces from the violence of tornado winds.  The occurence is rare enough, however, that scientists have  had minimal opportunities to test these hypotheses. 

I don't know about you, but I'd say frogs and fish raining from the sky is pretty wild. 

Insanely Idiotic and Idiotically Insane Quote of the Week #1

The world is filled with crazy people who say some pretty crazy things.  Here begins my brief catalog of statements from the vast expanse of the Internet (and elsewhere) that are absolutely insane, ridiculous, or just plain stupid.

"  im christian
     if we came from apes
     how come were not hairy and have a big mouth
     and did we end up looking like we do know
     and besides
     there isnt any serious proof of apes
     they showd a video saying an ape was wondering around in the forest
     that thing looked exactly like a costume that i had saw at a store
     know one ever cought an ape   "

Source: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/88776/?page=5&

This one should be pretty self-explanatory.  I won't even bring myself to add an editorial comments.

Douchebag of the Week #1 (Christopher Columbus)

Because Monday is undoubtably the worst day of the week, it has received the honor of being made host to my supposedly infinite part series, Douchebag of the Week.  This series will tend to focus on historical and/or political figures, but I anticipate occasionally including individuals from pop culture and possibly even fictional sources.  Brace yourselves, for the list will be long. 

Christopher Columbus receives the honor of being my first annointed Douchebag of the Week for several reasons.  First, he falsified his numbers on the estimate of the size of the Earth, primarily because doing so made his planned expedition seem cheaper than it would be so the Spanish crown would be more likely to fund it.  He estimated the distance from Spain to Asia to be about 2,400 miles, which is about a quarter of the actual distance.  Fortunately for him and his crew, who would have starved to death otherwise, they came across islands in the Caribbean, the Bahamas.  Thus began the brutal destruction of the Western Hemisphere's indigenous populations. 

Fueled by a blinding greed for gold and violent religious extremism, Columbus and his men decimated the native people of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the Arawaks (also known as the Taino).  Initially awed by the natives' generosity and hospitality, Columbus demanded to be led to their gold.  However, the expedition revealed that gold was of limited supply in the Caribbean, so the Europeans' attention was directed towards capturing as many slaves as possible.  Over the next three years, Columbus and his men slaughtered, pillaged, burned, and raped their way through the Caribbean Islands.  On Hispaniola, 1500 Arawak men, women, and children were rounded up in a massive raid by the Spaniards who were to return to Spain (about forty men were left behind to gather gold and slaves in the systematic rape of the Caribbean).  Five hundred of the strongest were selected to be dragged back in chains for labor and sex slavery.  Two hundred died on the journey home.  Until the establishment of permanent sugar plantations, slaves were the Caribbean's biggest export to Europe. 

Columbus justified his actions by declaring that he was acting under the will of God to spread Christianity to the unsaved heathens of the New World.  He later wrote, "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending as many slaves as can be sold."  His sickening religious extremism was alarmingly typical in Spain in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, as Ferdinand and Isabella had used religious hatred to great extent as a manipulative propaganda tool to motivate their people to drive out the Muslims and Jews.  More expeditions to the Americas followed, spreading smallpox, clapping natives in chains, and massacring villages that were reluctant to comply with Spanish demands.  When Columbus landed on the shores of Hispaniola in 1492, there were between 250,000 and 500,000 Arawaks.  Two years later, after merciless slaughter of a people who had never before even manufactured weapons, there were less than 150,000.  By 1515, the death toll from encomienda slave labor brought that number to 50,000.  In 1550, the Arawak population was estimated to be 500.  Fifty years later, the Arawak people and their descendants had been completely and utterly obliterated.  It has been one of history's few successful genocides.

This is the man whose arrival in the "New World" on October 12 is celebrated as a national holiday.  Christopher Columbus is my Douchebag of the Week.

Well, folks, things rarely get much crazier than this. 

Yesterday, a twenty-two year old man named Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords at a Safeway in Tucson, Arizona. She was shot in the head.  The bullet passed through her brain, leaving her still alive but in critical condition.  Besides Giffords, twelve other people were injured and six killed, including a child, a member of Congresswoman Giffords' staff, and U.S. District Judge John Roll.  Roll had received death threats in the past, particularly after allowing a $32 million civil rights law suit by immigrants against an Arizona ranch owner to be heard in court.  In other words, he was threatened for not being bound by the same prejudices of others.  Judge Roll had served the American legal system for over forty years and was appointed to the federal district seat in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.

The murdered child was a young girl (age 9) named Christina Green who was interested in politics and wanted to meet Representative Giffords at her constituent meeting outside of the Safeway.  The other three victims were all septuagenarians (Dorwan Stoddard, aged 76; Dorothy Morris, aged 76; and Phyllis Schneck, aged 79). 

The shooter had been known to be mentally unstable and had a criminal record.  Interestingly, Arizona's lack of any gun registration laws whatsoever enabled Loughner to legally purchase a weapon. 

This event is a tragedy, all the more so because it simply makes no sense.  Loughner is believed to have been an anti-government activist and supporter of the anti-Semitic ideas presented in Mein Kampf.  He was also believed to belong to the white supremacist/nationalist group American Renaissance.  The horrifying reality is that the attack was directed at individuals for no more reason than that they were themselves reasonable people.  The blind hatred of others, not based on rational disagreement, but merely because they have rational views, is one of the most insane forces in this world.  In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." 

Tucson's sheriff later commented on the shooting, stating that Arizona had become "the mecca of prejudice and bigotry." 

The nature of terrorism is that it only works when we're afraid.  Acts of this kind should not prompt us to cower or fear speaking our minds or standing for what is right and what is reasonable.  Rather, it makes rational discourse all the more vital to maintain sanity in an insane world. 

Our Place On Earth

There's no denying that our experience on this planet is a crazy one.  However, we seem to get so caught up in our short little lives on an ancient world spinning in a vast universe that we lose perspective of our own place, what our own existence on Earth adds up to in the grand scheme of things. 

Here are the geological facts: our home planet is approximately 4.6 billion years old.  Our species in its modern form, Homo sapiens sapiens, has been around for about 300,000 to 400,000 years.  These are big numbers.  Huge numbers are things everyone pretends to understand, but are all really incapable of wrapping their minds around.  After all, at a neurological level, humans are visually capable of instinctively distinguishing between "one," "two," "three," "four," "five," and "a lot."  To give us more understandable comprehension of the natural history of the world and where we place in it, here is a brief timeline of Earth, condensed into a single year. 

January 1st is roughly when swirling chunksof heavier elements blasted throughout space by an exploding star all clumped together into sphere, shaped and crafted by our friend, Gravity.  Unfortunately, Mother Earth doesn't get a birthday, and not just because she came around before primates started making calendars.  The formation of our planet was not an event, but a long process. 

Throughout January, this fiery hunk of rock hurtling through space cooled off and settled into a consistent orbit.  Chemical and geological processes released gases held to the surface by gravity into an atmosphere of sorts and created a more stable surface consisting of water, aluminum, molten rock, and carbon compounds.  Somewhere around the end of February or beginning of March, some whiz-bang chemistry wizardry cranked out organic compounds that formed the first prototypes of cells.  With reproduction and mutation, the craziness we call natural selection began its work. 

Ancestors of algae dominated the planet for the next few months, causing enormous changes in the make-up of our atmosphere.  Oxygen, a poisonous gas to most organisms, became a major component of the air, prompting new evolutionary developments.  By mid-August, more than halfway through the year, complex eukaryotic cells appeared.  Multi-cellular marine life didn't come about until about the middle of November.  As November ended and transitioned in December, the first plants began pioneering dry land.  Animals did not do so until a few days later with the ancestors of amphibians (more like lungfish than frogs).  Over the next week, dry land became covered with scrawny non-vascular plants like moss, along with fungi and algae, which developed into terrestrial swamps.  Then suddenly, on December 12, an unexplained event obliterated almost all life on earth, eliminating an estimated 95% of all species completely.  Although the word "extinction" usually makes us think of T-rex and dodos, comparing the Cambrian extinction to what killed the dinosaurs is like comparing the Holocaust to the Boston Massacre. 

With all of those open niches for exploitation, life exploded again to fill the space.  Early dinosaurs were trundling Pangaea by December 13.  A week later, flowering plants revolutionized the flora-fauna relationships of ecology.  Then, at the very end of December 26, the dinosaurs were wiped out when our planet crossed the path of what probably was a very big meteor turned meteorite.  The Age of Mammals began, less than a week before the present day. 

On the very last day of the year, early hominids developed in Africa in the evening.  Homo sapiens  (which includes both us and our close cousins, Neandertals) evolved at around 11:45 PM.  The first agrarian societies began one minute before midnight (which, incidentally, is just milliseconds before the time the Bible puts the creation of the universe).  Jesus was born around 11:59:45, fifteen seconds before midnight.  The eternal Roman Empire took up the next five seconds.  The Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence at a little less than two seconds to midnight.  The Cold War lasted about the last third of a second.  In those past two seconds, we consumed most of the fossil fuels that took the last month to form. 

Calling our existence on Earth a blink of an eye is much too generous.  Nothing gives one's existence perspective like insignificance.  So remember, as crazy as things seem here and now, we are not even a flash in the pan on a tiny orb of rock circling an insignificant star in a typical galaxy in an inconceivably enormous universe.  Yeah, we like to think that we're relevant and that we're special.  But let's be realistic.  It is our narcissistic delusion of self-importance that really makes us lose sight of the bigger picture.  Come on, now, humanity.  Take a deep breath, look up at the sky, and understand: we're pretty small.