Strange Days

Appropriate and inappropriate music for motorcycle rallies

Lucy, my spayed female dog, almost has become accustomed to the thunderous motorcycle engines of the biker rallies here in Myrtle Beach.

Meanwhile, I've noticed that engines aren't the only things making noise as motorcyclists cruise Ocean Boulevard. Some of them have music blaring from their motorcycles. I've actually heard the music when the engines were idling.

A couple of days ago, I heard some sugary pop blaring from one of those motorcycles. That hardly seemed appropriate. The majority of these bikes have been big -- either tough-guy bikes or travel bikes that could pull a recreational vehicle behind them.

And while it seems I've mostly heard classic rock and maybe some rap from these motorcycles, I have also heard some music that just hasn't fit either the fashion or the steel horse.

If I'm noticing this, then let me tell you, man -- you, man on the bike, listening to Katy Perry or Justin Bieber or whatever boy band -- if I'm noticing this, then the biker gangs are going to eat you during their snacktime, which is right after their toke time, and right before their naptime.

So allow me to make some observations and suggestions about the types of music to play and to avoid.

FOOL-PROOF

Tune the radio to a classic-rock station or a hard-rock station. You're looking for Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Aerosmith, or maybe Soundgarden, Limp Bizkit, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

My guess is one of these three will suffice:

1. Wave 104.1.

2. Rock 107.

3. 96.1 WKZQ.

 

EVOCATIVE

With a sense of humor and a flair for theatrics, you might try "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner.

What's that? How's a work of classical music going to work better than Perry and The Bieb?

If you're asking the question, then certainly you haven't heard it. And you haven't seen "Apocalypse Now," either, have you?

This work of classical music, blaring from a motorcycle, will evoke an ominous sense of your arrival.

In fact, if you'll watch this clip of "Apocalypse Now" through to the end, you'll get to hear the music and get an idea of how our neighborhoods feel while you're visiting.

 

By the way, this is South Carolina, so if provoked, many of our residents probably will shoot back, with similar anti-aircraft guns.

SCARY 

Sometimes, the mythology of the biker conjures dark, mysterious, esoteric images and emotions.

If that's the shtick you're going for, you need grinding, growling, gut-punching audio wreckage.

Try the band High on Fire. With this sound (even I can't quite say "music" here), you'll find yourself shoved into the biker mythology faster than your imitation leather chaps can follow you. The High on Fire video for "Fertile Green" even stars a dark biker hero:

 

 

And for more growling and grinding, there's always Nekrogoblikon (don't miss the band's convention-twisting video for "No One Survives").

 

GANGSTA RAP

Proper, early-1990s gangsta rap might seem a bit dated, but it still offers the same opportunities as heavy metal, hard rock and classic rock -- an outlaw attitude and an invincible swagger.

"Gangsta Gangsta" by NWA flows raw enough to ride and nasty enough to party. Ditto for most of their tracks.

DJ Quik's "Born and Raised in Compton" is a tough declaration of survival, perfect for a cocky, slow roll down the Boulevard.

 

 

BIKER SAFETY

So now you know how to ride with appropriate music. Turn off the sugary pop and you'll make it through the rallies.

All that being said, you might want to wait until you've come to a complete stop before switching the stations, the iPod input, or the 8-track tape. We don't want you to break on through to the other side. Not now. Not around here.

We don't want to be the ones cleaning up the asphalt after your wipeout.  

-Colin Foote Burch

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You're an exception to the rule

Between the Spring Break vacationers and the motorcyclists, Myrtle Beach folks could enjoy spring air and relative calm.

Beach weather still hasn't quite begun. The water is still way too cold. Only the most dedicated sunbathers will tan right now.

Still, the ocean and the sand are magnets for motorcycles.

On my street, in the Avenues North of Myrtle Beach, orange-and-white cones sit at both ends bearing signs that read "No Thru Traffic" as a polite way of asking bikers not to thunder by the local residences.

But daily, dozens of bikers thunder by anyway, and this rebellion is a uniquely American phenomenon.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave, everyone is an exception to the rule.

Maybe we have so many rules and regulations in hopes that someone will accidentally follow one.

Hey, you've just got to dash into that store for just a sec. Park in the fire lane.

You're exceptional.

Unfortunately, exceptionalism is not just a matter of driving and parking.

Consider our exceptional U.S. Justice Department, who just had to track down a government leak for a really, really, just, serious national security issue -- so its officers "secretly obtained two months worth of reporters' telephone records in an  'unprecedented' search for a confidential source," as the U.K. Daily Mail described it.

At a press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder wanted everyone to know how exceptional the situation was. "This was a very serious leak and a very, very  serious leak," he said.

Notice the formula for exceptionalism: "very serious," directly connected to "very, very serious."

Well, in that case, we ought to make an exception.

You might even find a public opinion poll with majority support for water-boarding the journalists who used those telephones. Hey -- Americans hate journalists, and the public is always willing to make an exception when they'll get what they want.

Meanwhile, the exceptional Justice Department has launched an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service, officials of which were exceptional enough to place their dislike for conservative political groups above IRS policies. 

The tarnished Justice Department investigating the IRS? I'm sure someone will tell us there's nothing exceptional about that.

I know, I know -- big organizations have bunches of employees, and to police them all at all times would require a rather exceptional bureaucracy.

So let me take this back to street level.

I was walking Lucy, my bitch, when I decided to stop and take a couple of snapshots of the orange cone and its "No Thru Traffic" sign.

As I was lining up my camera-phone shot in the bright sunlight, a middle-aged guy in a conservative, white, mid-sized car pulled onto my street, seemed to hesitate for a sec, and then did a U-turn back onto Ocean Boulevard.

Perhaps he didn't want his license plate to appear in my portrait of the "No Thru Traffic" sign.

With a dog on a leash, I looked like a local, and I was photographing a sign. Maybe the driver thought I was exceptionally pissed about violations of the sign's message.

If I'm right about that, the U-turn made for a peculiar social event. By photographing the sign, I somehow reinforced the sign.

Maybe that's all the biker rallies need: someone to pause and photograph the exceptional signs -- so everyone else will feel a little less exceptional.

-Colin Foote Burch

Please don't clone a T-Rex, literally or figuratively

“Science can tell you how to clone a tyrannosaurus rex,” says a popular Internet meme. “Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea.”

The human race is learning how to clone, figuratively speaking, quite a few dangerous dinosaurs.

Scientific research has created new frontiers in food. Some processed snack foods taste so good, I won’t even stop eating them until the general anesthetic kicks in, right before my latest bypass surgery.

Wireless cameras and weapons systems have allowed military personnel to kill people with unmanned flying drones, which sound really cool until I think about our strikes in other countries and the "collateral” deaths that ought to be on the United States’ conscience.

Internet entrepreneurs and affordable video devices have enabled me to spend hours – when I might have been bogged down with something like grading papers – watching people do stupid stunts and injuring themselves. (A show called “Ridiculousness” on MTV is a half-hour devoted to viral video clips of people trying stupid things and getting hurt, like “Jackass” with a cast of regular people, a cast of thousands of normal folks.)

I’m not the first to notice that progress – specifically, technological and scientific progress – is an absolute social, cultural, and political value in America. I’ve even heard George Will, the Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist and scold of government spending, say he believes space exploration is a good use of government money.

Who can argue with that? America is the birthplace of the aircraft and the telephone. Royalty and leaders from around the world come to America for the best medical treatment. Even one of our former vice presidents invented the Internet (sorry – that’s an old one, but I couldn’t resist).

Few people aside from the Unabomber’s sympathizers oppose scientific and technological advances. Even behind the pop-culture stereotypes of some groups, scientific and technological progress remains an assumed good.

Growing up in North Carolina, I knew a lot of Christian fundamentalists. They all worked for global computer companies. They were creationists, to be sure, but they knew their calculus, their programming languages, and their home computers. They had Bible studies in their nice suburban homes, which were outfitted with the latest refrigerators, microwave ovens, and television sets. Lovely lawns, too.

With progress as an absolute American value comes a belief: If we can do something, we ought to do it.

This might be due to the decreasing wisdom in our culture. Mass media brings us more information, but we have less knowledge and even less wisdom.

That was Neil Postman’s take. Postman, author of Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century, wrote that information was merely facts, while knowledge was the incorporation of information (facts) into useable forms. Finally, wisdom used one type of knowledge to evaluate another type of knowledge.

If you think about it, specialization makes the isolation of types of knowledge even worse. Advances in knowledge branch and branch in special new directions and sub-categories until some guy somewhere knows everything about the tailfin of a rare tropical fish -- but he cannot break into his new refrigerator.

Or, for example, when someone figures out how to clone a tyrannosaurus rex, as exciting and cool as that might be, he might not have any idea why it’s a bad idea to progress to actually doing it.

-Colin Foote Burch 

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You don't have to do anything in this class

Today is the last day of classes for the spring semester at Coastal Carolina University, where I am employed as a lecturer in the Department of English.

I teach five classes (or sections) each semester. I have about 20 students in each class.

As each semester draws to a close, some students have questions about the remaining assignments, papers, and of course exams. Many of these questions begin, "Do we have to...?"

This question is not usually asked as a whine. Usually it's asked out of a sincere curiosity for information and a reasonable concern for one's grade.

But the answer is, they don't have to do anything.

As far as I'm concerned, the students don't have to do anything in my classes.

I am against coercion.

I don't want to force anyone at all.

If they fail to turn in a paper, I am not going to call their parents. I am not going to sue them. I am not going to find their apartment or dorm room and kick in the door.

Students don't even have to show up for class.

I don't want to be responsible for high blood pressure in the academic hierarchy above me, and I don't want to give a poor reflection of the university, so I should explain myself.

Should students choose to participate in the academic work of the semester, I will grade them. I will rate and rank their efforts. I will give them feedback, too.

They might not like the courses I teach, but passing my classes is a means to an end for them. Most of them understand they have to fulfill certain requirements to obtain a four-year degree. Most of them have declared a major and want to do something with their lives.

At the beginning of semesters, especially the fall semesters, I often give a little sermon to freshmen in my English classes. With the last exhausting academic push ahead before summer begins, now might be a good time to recall it and to put hard work in perspective. My little sermon goes something like this:

"I understand if English wasn't your favorite subject in high school.

"You know what I don't understand? I don't understand people who bring the too-cool-for-school attitude to college.

"You all saw someone like that in high school, didn't you? Someone who was too cool for school?"

They always nod.

"You know what? I don't hold that against them. They can have the too-cool-for-school attitude in high school. You know why? Because almost everyone has to finish high school.

"Even if it's not a state law, you have to finish high school because mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or aunt or uncle require it of you. If you're living under their roof, and you're under 18, you pretty much have to do what they say. And they'll tell you to finish high school.

"But you know what? When you go away to college, most of you are legal adults. Most of you are 18 or older, and some of you will probably turn 18 this semester.

"You're a legal adult. You can open a bank account. You can buy a house. You can rent an apartment.

"You can vote. You can get a job. You can get married. You can get shot-up for your country.

"You can go into the military -- they have some great job-training programs.

"You can go across the street and get a two-year degree. Hey, some people with two-year degrees are making more money than I am.

"You can get a job washing dishes at Golden Corral and spend all your spare time playing World of Warcraft.

"You're free. You can do what you want. No one can stop you.

"Now I understand if this isn't your favorite subject, and I understand that we all have bad days.

"I also understand that we all have different competencies and different appitudes. Maybe grammar and writing is hard for you. That's OK. If I can tell that you're trying, I'll respect that and help you out.

"But the one thing I don't understand is the too-cool-for-school attitude in my classroom.

"Because if you bring that attitude into my classroom, you're a coward.

"You're spineless. You're gutless. You have no balls.

"Because if you really hate being here, then you're an idiot for staying. No one is forcing you to be here.

"You're 18. You're a legal adult. You're free. You do not have to be here.

"So have some guts. Have a spine. Have some balls. Get out of here and do what you want to do.

"But if you want to be here, I'm going to do my best to prepare you for the next four years of academic writing and arguing -- because you've got plenty of papers and presentations ahead of you."

I'm grateful to their parents and their high school teachers because a majority of them seem to completely understand what I'm saying.

And no, they don't have to do anything in my class.

-Colin Foote Burch

Military measures required for tasty snack food, blast it

Flavor Blasted Goldfish Crackers have been eating at me for a long time.

Luckily for me, my daughters had passed the age of eating Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish Crackers when the company's "Flavor Blasted" brand hit the shelves.

And I'm glad my little girls missed the "Flavor Blasted" era. What might have happened to their taste buds?

Those little orange crackers have been eating at me, or nibbling at me, ever since the "Flavor Blasted" version was released.

So I'm trying to understand why a snack needs to be "blasted" with "flavor."

Think through this rationally.

To need a blast of flavor, a cracker must already be a food product so bland and processed that it requires military measures to become interesting.

It is not coated. It is not dipped. It is not soaked. It is not filled. It is blasted. 

And by blasted, I think they mean "shellacked" to an extreme degree with extreme stuff -- with something like whatever coats Cheetohs and Doritos. Stuff that sticks to your fingers. What is that stuff? It can't be natural.

"Flavor Blasted" sounds like Pepperidge Farms took all that coating stuff, loaded it in a spray painter, and layered those crackers inch upon inch.

A "blast" has become a description of a product's experience. Spin-offs of Mountain Dew and Colt 45 have promised to be, or to deliver, blasts.

I don't mind that use of "blast." Language changes and evolves. The meaning of an individual word might just slip and slide during the course of centuries. That's nothing new.

But I wonder if the product developers, marketers and advertisers who deploy the word "blast" took a look at its current dictionary definition.

According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, "blasted" has these possible definitions:

1. "damaged by or as if by an explosive, lightning, wind, or supernatural force <upon this blasted heath  — Shakespeare> <a blasted apple tree>"

2. "damned, detestable <this blasted weather>"

3. "slang: intoxicated from drugs or alcohol"

My take-away from this definition?

Flavor Blasted Goldfish Crackers have been damaged by flavor to the point they're detestable, and also they might be intoxicated.

Or, maybe adults must be intoxicated to eat them.

"Flavor-damned" offers another interesting possibility: crackers damned by their flavors.

You start chewing up a handful, and you're like, "Damn!" And then you're like, "These are terrible."

Maybe the process of hyper-coating these crackers is like "an explosive" or "wind," a very strong wind, perhaps a tornado of processed-food flecks.

And, of course, "blast" has sometimes referred to a gastro-intenstinal outcome of ingesting such foods.

-Colin Foote Burch   

Blank billboards provoke existential crisis

All of these blank billboards around Myrtle Beach remind me of a story about the time John Lennon met Yoko Ono.

While at one of Ono's exhibits, Lennon saw a ladder leading up to a canvas, and a spyglass was hanging from a chain on the canvas. Lennon climbed the ladder and looked through the spyglass, where he saw one simple word: "YES."

How affirming.

But when the Myrtle Beach area's blank billboards reminded me of that story, I remembered one essential detail incorrectly. Instead of "YES," I had remembered the image being a question mark: ?.

Imagine if that had been the case: You climb a ladder, look through a spyglass expecting to see something intentional, something purposeful, something the artist wants to communicate, but there's a question mark, throwing your curiosity back at you -- so what did you expect to see? That might be the more interesting question than why Ono drew attention to YES.

So, as you're driving along U.S. 17 Bypass or U.S. 501, your eyes likely glance at the billboards, only to see the occasional blank space. What did you expect to see there? What did you hope to see?

A transportation billboard is one of the main characters in a personal favorite movie, L.A. Story. Steve Martin wrote the screenplay and starred in the film.

Early in the movie, the electronic billboard starts spelling out messages for Martin's character when car trouble forces him to the side of the road. The benign message "freeway clear" suddenly transforms into "hiya," and a conversation begins.

The billboard gives Martin's character a riddle to solve, and that riddle holds the answer for what Martin's character should do next.

Apparently, the wisdom held within the riddle will be something more meaningful than "keep right" or "dense fog ahead."

How peculiar that a sign could seem so meaningful while its meaning isn't completely clear. It's both mystical and existential, an odd moment when everyday, mundane matters seem to intersect with something like a greater reality and human decisions take on new gravity.

That thought has been buzzing in my head for a while. I thought about starting a literary journal devoted to the idea. "Blank Sign," I would call it, "A Journal of Indeterminate Epiphanies."

All this, conjured by open advertising space in our tourist market.

So I need the help of local business owners. They need to place ads on these blank billboards. They need to start providing some answers before these blank billboards ask me too many questions.

-Colin Foote Burch

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For those who couldn't stay

I haven’t been a fan of Rick Warren, pastor and author The Purpose-Driven Life, a book that sold something like a trillion copies.

As a pastor, Rick Warren has influenced hundreds of churches, and in recent years his book has been studied by numerous churches along the Grand Strand.

I once said the book was targeted to the rationalistic, utilitarian branch of evangelicalism, and for those who are already lost due to my word choices, I’ll clarify: I was being snarky – about the book and its fans.

But last Friday’s report of the suicide of Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Rick Warren, hit me like a gut punch.

It scared me. I’ve had my own battles with clinical depression, and something in Matthew Warren’s story feels non-negotiable and irrevocable. When someone like Matthew Warren has for a father an internationally known pastor with access (as the pastor said in a statement after the suicide) to the best psychological and medical help in the world, I imagine him having God and all of human wisdom on his side. It wasn’t enough.

I recalled feeling a similar sense of despair under very different circumstances: In May 2001, I was vacationing in Black Mountain, N.C., and made a trip to a used-bookstore in nearby Asheville. I found a used hardback copy of writer John Berryman’s collected poems. I had read, somewhere, about Berryman, and he intrigued me. When I returned to the cabin in Black Mountain, I flipped through the biographical pages and saw that Berryman had jumped from a bridge to end his life.

I felt sick. Berryman’s suicide, my choice of his book, and his passing resemblance (in his later years) to one of my grandfathers, all worked together to upset me. In a strange way, I felt met by an omen, a prophecy of something unavoidable. To this day, I’ve read very little of the book. I don't like what it reminds me of.

Matthew Warren and Berryman both threw at me a stomach ache full of questions – was this depressive state just plain fated? What if my depression worsened? Was suicide just inevitable?

Today I’m in a much healthier place than I was during that trip to Black Mountain 12 years ago, but Matthew Warren’s suicide bothered me because I can’t help wondering if, someday, the “black dog” of depression will return again, bigger and heavier.

I’m at a much healthier place, but I’m not going to tell you how I got there. The worst thing I could do would be to talk about how things got better.

That’s because I’m not Matthew Warren. I have no idea what he was feeling, how bad it was, what might have brought it on, what object he might have been looking at when he realized for himself he couldn’t carry on. I just can’t know.

One size fits no one. The worst thing about our culture right now is its plethora of singular answers. So many people claim to have found The Answer or The Secret or The Steps. Your family member or your neighbor enthusiastically promotes some book or system, and you wonder if they’re really benefitting from this thing or just parroting the propaganda, entranced by skillful marketers.

Perhaps they’ve found what works for them, but I strongly disagree that they have found Theeeee anything.

Many of my friends and acquaintances will be upset with me for saying that. To be on their team, I’m supposed to say “Jesus is the answer!” No doubt, a few of them haven’t, and never will, reflect on the blessings of their own genetic inheritance, their own competencies, their own aptitudes, their own ability to move ahead in careers and communities, their own hard work at (or dumb luck of) having good, supportive families. Then again, I also know that other people who cry “Jesus is the answer” have their own torments, and somehow, are helped by faith. Remember Johnny Cash.

At very least, we should ask, “Jesus is the answer to what?” I’m sure Jesus was an answer for Matthew Warren, an answer for some aspect of him, for some aspect of his life, but Jesus was not the answer he needed when he made his final decision.

I’m inclined to leave you with lyrics from several songs that come to mind. They are all inappropriate. The loss is real and final. There is no remedy. The best we can do is further question the road to suicide.

-Colin Foote Burch

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You believe what you want to believe

That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. The statement carries a fearful implication. The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously. -- Richard Weaver

 

It don't really matter to me baby,/ You believe what you want to believe, / You don't have to live like a refugee. -- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

 

People will believe what they want to believe. -- H.L. Mencken

 

Don't worry about the 1-percenters, or the 99-percenters, for that matter.

 

Worry about the 13-percenters.

 

Believe it or not, ha ha, 13 percent of Americans believe that President Obama is the Antichrist of biblical prophecy, according to a fresh new survey from Public Policy Polling.

 

Luckily, more people believe in Bigfoot, a whopping 14 percent.

 

And, more people believe the CIA "was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in America’s inner cities in the 1980’s" -- another 14 percent.

 

Even more people, 15 percent, believe "media or the government adds secret mind-controlling technology to television broadcast signals" -- and they're probably right, considering 70 percent of us have had our minds controlled not to believe such a thing.

 

But only 13 percent believe Obama is the Antichrist.

 

Maybe I should seek out the 4-percenters. They've got the real insight. Unique perspective. They believe "shape-shifting reptilian people" control our world.

 

(Perhaps they're among the 26.2 percent of American adults who have a diagnosable mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.)

 

Knowledge of the reptilian people is quite exclusive, even more exclusive than the 5 percent who believe Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was "secretly replaced by a lookalike so The Beatles could continue."

 

Meanwhile, apparently some South Carolinians believe that Mark Sandford won't go hike the Appalachian Trail ever again, because he's the GOP's new (rerun?) candidate for the 1st District U.S. House seat.

 

That's not necessarily a bad belief. A bad belief might be, like, the government adds flouride to the water for sinister reasons, a belief held by 9 percent of American voters.

 

Ain't that America -- we can believe what we want to believe.

 

-Colin Foote Burch

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It's evolution, baby

I am not a scientist. I am not a philosopher. I do not play either on TV. However, I am uniquely qualified to bring you the following observations:

1. If we descended from apes, why are we so concerned about hair removal? I wonder what monkeys think about the efforts we give to shaving and waxing: “Oh, sure, you evolved the gift of language and now you’re too good for body hair. You want to see smart? You want to see intelligence? We’re covered with hair, and we have never, ever developed weapons of mass destruction. So who looks more civilized now?”

2. I’m trying to find another married fellow who stresses about the cleanliness of his house as much as his wife does. So far, no luck. But I have a theory as to why. In nature, the one who gives birth or lays eggs seems to be more interested in the condition of the nest. Sure, some men are neat-freaks, and males can become interested in the condition of the nest; it's just probably not natural.

3. The U.S. Supreme Court is going to make decisions related to same-sex marriage, probably by June. I think the band Love and Rockets had some insight into this matter, expressed in their song “No New Tale to Tell.” They sing, “You cannot go against nature / Because when you do / Go against nature / That’s part of nature too.” Which completely undercuts the conclusion of No. 2 above.

4. Arguments for the spiritual element of human beings are challenged by our growing knowledge of how the human brain evolved and how it functions. A soul or a mind or some kind of invisible seat of willpower seem less likely when you consider stories like this one from a 2009 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald:

Elliot had a small tumour cut from his cortex near the brain's frontal lobe.  He had been a model father and husband, holding down an important management job  in a large corporation and was active in his church. But the operation changed  everything.

Elliot's IQ stayed the same - testing in the smartest 3 per cent - but, after  surgery, he was incapable of  decision. Normal life became impossible. Routine  tasks that should take 10 minutes now took hours. Elliot endlessly deliberated  over irrelevant details.... His indecision was pathological.

Elliot was soon sacked. A series of new businesses failed and a con man  forced him into bankruptcy. His wife divorced him. The tax office began  investigating him. He moved back with his parents. As neurologist Antonio Damasio put it: "Elliot emerged as a man with a normal intellect who was unable  to decide properly, especially when the decision involved personal or social  matters."

But why was Elliot suddenly incapable of making good decisions? What had  happened to his brain? Damasio's first insight occurred while talking to Elliot  about the tragic turn his life had taken. "He was always controlled," Damasio  remembers, "always describing scenes as a dispassionate, uninvolved spectator.  Nowhere was there a sense of his own suffering, even though he was the  protagonist ... I never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation  with him: no sadness, no impatience, no frustration." Elliot's friends and  family confirmed Damasio's observations: ever since his surgery, he had seemed  strangely devoid of emotion, numb to the tragic turn his own life had taken.

This insight has led my wife and daughters to thumb through the anatomy book and choose which parts of my brain they want to get rid of. If they have their way, I'll be as good as a robot, ever-obedient, by the end of the year.

5.In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the character Hamlet tells Rosencrantz he cannot make "a wholesome answer" because "my wit's diseas'd." Was he sick at soul, sick at heart, or sick at brain? Probably at brain, and this understanding simultaneously could be a leap forward for criminal justice as well as a real threat to civil rights. New understandings of how the brain evolved and how it functions today has led to a predictive application. According to Wired magazine's website:

Brain scans of convicted felons can predict which ones are most likely to get arrested after they get out of prison, scientists have found in a study of 96 male offenders.

“It’s the first time brain scans have been used to predict recidivism,” said neuroscientist Kent Kiehl of the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who led the new study. Even so, Kiehl and others caution that the method is nowhere near ready to be used in real-life decisions about sentencing or parole.

And it never, ever should be used in real-life decisions about sentencing or parole, because that would be punishment for crimes not (yet) commited.

However, this study could be evidence for what neuroscientists like Sam Harris have argued, that human beings ultimately do not have much in the way of free will. Stuff is just hard-wired from the get-go.

So, when I eat all of my wife's expensive non-dairy Almond Dream ice cream, I really had no choice in the matter.

Nor did I have a choice other than to blame the disappearance of the Almond Dream on our defenseless 7-year-old.

-Colin Foote Burch

 

'Future generations' can count on a 'comprehensive plan'

At some point during my gluttonous consumption of news media, I realized that politicians have a favorite answer to difficult questions about immigration reform, the debt ceiling, environmental concerns, and just about anything that requires taking a specifc, hard-nosed position.

"What we need is a comprehensive plan," they say, adding that the plan must help "future generations."

That's a great answer -- when you don't have a clue what to do, call on everyone to come up with a comprehensive plan that solves the problem or addresses the issue.

That takes the the focus off the politician and dumps it on a big, unweildy, faceless political body that no one likes, like, Congress, or Washington, D.C., or Columbia, or Raleigh, N.C., or "the state house."

"Compresensive plans" for "future generations" have become all the rage. Go to your favorite search engine, click the news tab and plug in those two phrases in quotation marks. See what you get.

Former Senator Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas, used the phrases in a blog post for The Hill, a D.C.-based political news outfit.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen quoted the leader of an advocacy group saying, "Our Comprehensive Plan requires city leaders to consider the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

Elsewhere, Congressmen call for comprehensize plans to help future generations. Editorial writers call for the same thing. The topic could be oil and natural gas, or the national debt, or local environmentmental concerns. Everyone wants a "comprehensive plan" to help "future generations."

Despite my cynicism about comprehensive plans ever being approved by actual legislative bodies (consider the plight of Simpson-Bowles), I'm worried that "comprehensive plan for future generations" and variations will become a kind of "thought-terminating cliche'," or a quick-and-easy answer that goes unquestioned.

Worse yet, maybe a call for a "comprehensive plan" with references to "future generations" will become, practically speaking, a call for inaction.

A politician can say he wants a comprehensive plan without ever doing the hard work -- or taking the hard stand -- to come up with one and fight for one. After all, once you take a stand, someone is going to hate you, write nasty tweets about you, and blog you over the head with thought-terminating cliches about your character.

Each time I hear someone respond to an interviewer's question with a call for a "comprehensive plan," I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a clue what the details of such a plan would be.

George Orwell warned us about the possibility of over-used phrases becoming devoid of meaning. I'm pretty sure any call for a "comprehensive plan" that references "future generations" is quickly arriving at that place of meaninglessness.

-Colin Foote Burch