Iggy Pop- if you know who he is, you know how important someone can be musically without really being a star. He's certainly a star to me, but sadly, he's not as well known as he should be. Over the years he has recorded some of my favorite songs. Perhaps the best known is Candy, sung with a member of the B-52s, and of course he did the title track for Repo Man (a movie that also should be better known.) He's still performing and doesn't seem to age. Here are a few songs you might find interesting.
Lust For Life- a punk anthem, a philosophy, and a fun song.
Repo Man- played as an instrumental over the opening titles of the movie, the song has some great lines.
Candy- a bit of a departure for him, but still cool.
Now I Wanna Be Your Dog- as close to a love song as he gets. Okay, Candy is closer...
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Sunday, September 20, 2015
I See A Chemtrail Out My Window Right Now! What Am I Breathing????
When I was a little kid I would watch the skies for planes (still do.) I wondered how something so small in the sky could be so big on the ground, and how something so fast seemed to be moving so slowly. And I wondered why sometimes I saw just a silver-gray dot, with maybe a hint of glare off a window, while other times there were great big white trails following the plane. Eventually I learned what causes those contrails, and saw plenty more, in real life and in movies and newsreels about World War Two, where great fleets of planes would blanket the sky (and where those trails were avoided when possible because they made it easy for enemies to find the planes.)
Basically, planes will leave trails because just like your car's exhaust, plane exhaust is hot and wet. Now picture it coming out in a cool, dry area of the sky, and poof! You have a little cloud. Whether they actually form, and exactly what they look like and how long they last, depends on the actual conditions where the plane is.
Some time in the '90s, some people became convinced that part of what we see in the sky is a vast conspiracy to poison us, maybe brainwash us. They said what we see are really "chemtrails," poisonous substances spread by the military, or secret airline projects, and that they were covering the globe with chemicals. Now I am open-minded, but also skeptical. You have to show me facts before I will believe something bizarre. Not that bizarre things can't be true, just that I tend to live by Occam's Razor, and of course Sagan's rule that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." And I have always been watching the skies, and along the way I've hung out a lot at airports, even worked at them, and gotten my pilot's license. So, unlike some other things that are the subject of conspiracy theories I know quite a bit about this particular topic.
(I'm going to ignore, for the purposes of this post, the fact that chemicals are indeed sprayed from planes to fight pests, and fertilize crops, and seed clouds. All these things happen, but they are pretty common, and presumably not conspiracies.)
Now, I do not doubt that our government has done things without our knowledge, and experimented on us. Tuskegee, nuclear bomb tests, and all sorts of other instances of such misbehavior mean I would not put it past them to try to alter the weather, or use chemicals on us for other reasons. But if you want to convince me that it is not just possible but is actually happening, I'm going to need a little proof. I have read articles about this (and written letters to the editor in response.) I have debated people about it online. I have seen a lot of pseudo-scientific garbage thrown around supposedly proving that chemtrails exist. I have seen uncountable pictures and videos supposedly of chemtrails but clearly showing normal contrails. Hey, when you don't understand something, it's easy to jump to conclusions about what it is. And with our increasing lack of historical perspective, and short attention spans fed by cable news and the internet, it's easy to just look out the window and make instant assumptions about what we see, instead of putting it in context and thinking for a moment about what it is likely to be. But I am still disappointed to find presumably-intelligent people convinced that any time a plane flies over it is dropping deadly chemicals.
All of the "evidence" I've been shown has been normal aviation occurrences. Those who actually spend time in the sky, or lots of time observing it, are baffled by the willingness of some to believe in chemtrails, and by their zealousness in refusing to accept facts. Contrails occur whenever the atmospheric conditions support them, and can vary quite a bit. They can be short or long, skinny or wide, disappear almost instantly or last for hours (sometimes even causing a thin layer of clouds.) You might see two planes flying at the same time, with only one leaving contrails. Why? Because, though you might not be able to tell, they are flying at different altitudes. The atmosphere, and the weather, are not as uniform and obvious as you might think. Winds and temperatures can vary greatly as you go up. Which leads us to one of the assumptions of chemtrail believers: that whatever is being sprayed is drifting down on us, for whatever purpose. Look, if something is sprayed at 30,000 feet, even 10,000 feet, it is not going to come straight down on you. In those vertical miles, the winds are blowing in different directions at different altitudes, and whatever it is will be dispersed, or at the very least drift way off target.
There is talk of patterns, of concentrations of chemtrails over cities, etc. "There's no other reason for this!" Except that there is. Obviously planes congregate around cities for takeoff and landing. But also, they often fly over or near cities due to the way navigation systems are set up. Planes don't just fly around willy-nilly; they typically go along established routes from point to point. Small planes not so much, and as GPS becomes more entrenched we will move to a system of more-direct navigation. But for now, airliners and military flights follow "highways in the sky."
Some will say "but there are so many more of them now! Something must be going on!" Indeed- there is something going on. Air travel is far more common nowadays, mainly because it's a lot cheaper. Yeah, I hate paying $400 to go somewhere, but adjusted for inflation that's actually low. Flying used to be reserved for special occasions, and fairly high-up business travelers. Now almost anybody can go, partly due to deregulation. Also partly due to airlines cramming more and more seats in, so that your knees now touch your chest.
Conspiracy theorists will say the military and airlines are doing this spraying, for whatever reasons the believers come up with at the moment. Hey, the military might be able to keep something this big a secret. Pilots and other aviation employees, not so much. They talk. A lot. They have a lot of time to kill. And another thing: airlines do not like excess weight, so how would they carry tanks of whatever substance makes these things?
There is talk of contrails looking different nowadays, and maybe they do. Up into the '70s most jets used turbojet engines; since then, we've gone to turbofans. Basically, they are more efficient jet engines with fairly different designs. I don't know enough about engine design to guarantee that this makes contrails come out a little differently, but I wouldn't be surprised.
As with anything else, if you don't know much about a subject, and take what little you do know out of context, you are not going to come to accurate conclusions. I try not to make assumptions based on inadequate evidence. The "evidence" for chemtrails consists of a lot of misinterpreted facts. I know quite a bit about aviation, and the weather, and when I see the pictures and videos they pass off as proof of chemtrails I have to laugh at how little they know about both. It's normal stuff, but if you pass it through a lens of ignorance and paranoia it might look different.
Basically, planes will leave trails because just like your car's exhaust, plane exhaust is hot and wet. Now picture it coming out in a cool, dry area of the sky, and poof! You have a little cloud. Whether they actually form, and exactly what they look like and how long they last, depends on the actual conditions where the plane is.
Some time in the '90s, some people became convinced that part of what we see in the sky is a vast conspiracy to poison us, maybe brainwash us. They said what we see are really "chemtrails," poisonous substances spread by the military, or secret airline projects, and that they were covering the globe with chemicals. Now I am open-minded, but also skeptical. You have to show me facts before I will believe something bizarre. Not that bizarre things can't be true, just that I tend to live by Occam's Razor, and of course Sagan's rule that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." And I have always been watching the skies, and along the way I've hung out a lot at airports, even worked at them, and gotten my pilot's license. So, unlike some other things that are the subject of conspiracy theories I know quite a bit about this particular topic.
(I'm going to ignore, for the purposes of this post, the fact that chemicals are indeed sprayed from planes to fight pests, and fertilize crops, and seed clouds. All these things happen, but they are pretty common, and presumably not conspiracies.)
Now, I do not doubt that our government has done things without our knowledge, and experimented on us. Tuskegee, nuclear bomb tests, and all sorts of other instances of such misbehavior mean I would not put it past them to try to alter the weather, or use chemicals on us for other reasons. But if you want to convince me that it is not just possible but is actually happening, I'm going to need a little proof. I have read articles about this (and written letters to the editor in response.) I have debated people about it online. I have seen a lot of pseudo-scientific garbage thrown around supposedly proving that chemtrails exist. I have seen uncountable pictures and videos supposedly of chemtrails but clearly showing normal contrails. Hey, when you don't understand something, it's easy to jump to conclusions about what it is. And with our increasing lack of historical perspective, and short attention spans fed by cable news and the internet, it's easy to just look out the window and make instant assumptions about what we see, instead of putting it in context and thinking for a moment about what it is likely to be. But I am still disappointed to find presumably-intelligent people convinced that any time a plane flies over it is dropping deadly chemicals.
All of the "evidence" I've been shown has been normal aviation occurrences. Those who actually spend time in the sky, or lots of time observing it, are baffled by the willingness of some to believe in chemtrails, and by their zealousness in refusing to accept facts. Contrails occur whenever the atmospheric conditions support them, and can vary quite a bit. They can be short or long, skinny or wide, disappear almost instantly or last for hours (sometimes even causing a thin layer of clouds.) You might see two planes flying at the same time, with only one leaving contrails. Why? Because, though you might not be able to tell, they are flying at different altitudes. The atmosphere, and the weather, are not as uniform and obvious as you might think. Winds and temperatures can vary greatly as you go up. Which leads us to one of the assumptions of chemtrail believers: that whatever is being sprayed is drifting down on us, for whatever purpose. Look, if something is sprayed at 30,000 feet, even 10,000 feet, it is not going to come straight down on you. In those vertical miles, the winds are blowing in different directions at different altitudes, and whatever it is will be dispersed, or at the very least drift way off target.
There is talk of patterns, of concentrations of chemtrails over cities, etc. "There's no other reason for this!" Except that there is. Obviously planes congregate around cities for takeoff and landing. But also, they often fly over or near cities due to the way navigation systems are set up. Planes don't just fly around willy-nilly; they typically go along established routes from point to point. Small planes not so much, and as GPS becomes more entrenched we will move to a system of more-direct navigation. But for now, airliners and military flights follow "highways in the sky."
Some will say "but there are so many more of them now! Something must be going on!" Indeed- there is something going on. Air travel is far more common nowadays, mainly because it's a lot cheaper. Yeah, I hate paying $400 to go somewhere, but adjusted for inflation that's actually low. Flying used to be reserved for special occasions, and fairly high-up business travelers. Now almost anybody can go, partly due to deregulation. Also partly due to airlines cramming more and more seats in, so that your knees now touch your chest.
Conspiracy theorists will say the military and airlines are doing this spraying, for whatever reasons the believers come up with at the moment. Hey, the military might be able to keep something this big a secret. Pilots and other aviation employees, not so much. They talk. A lot. They have a lot of time to kill. And another thing: airlines do not like excess weight, so how would they carry tanks of whatever substance makes these things?
There is talk of contrails looking different nowadays, and maybe they do. Up into the '70s most jets used turbojet engines; since then, we've gone to turbofans. Basically, they are more efficient jet engines with fairly different designs. I don't know enough about engine design to guarantee that this makes contrails come out a little differently, but I wouldn't be surprised.
As with anything else, if you don't know much about a subject, and take what little you do know out of context, you are not going to come to accurate conclusions. I try not to make assumptions based on inadequate evidence. The "evidence" for chemtrails consists of a lot of misinterpreted facts. I know quite a bit about aviation, and the weather, and when I see the pictures and videos they pass off as proof of chemtrails I have to laugh at how little they know about both. It's normal stuff, but if you pass it through a lens of ignorance and paranoia it might look different.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
9/11, plus a few days and years.
9/11 was the other day, and I read, watched, and listened to plenty of memorials about it. I didn't have the time or energy to write anything. But I was thinking about it. I've written about my experiences on 9/11 before. It was inspiring to see us pull together as a country after that, even as a planet- so much support, so much kindness, so much resolve to overcome the trauma and make the world a better place.
That lasted for awhile. But even at the start, some people were saying "fuck all Muslims, they did this to us!" Those voices were a bit tamped down, but grew ever-stronger. Some of us realized that we needed to find the specific people who planned the attacks, bring them to justice, not just make it a crusade against Muslims in general. But we got off track. We lost bin Laden at Tora Bora, then moved on to Iraq for unrelated reasons. I was disappointed in the direction both our government and some of our populace took. We had a moment of solidarity. Bush at worst threw it away, or at best let it slip through our fingers. We had a great moment for America, but it didn't last long.
I remember looking out the window in the days after the attacks and being heartened to see the flag still flying. I remember going to the airport and not being let near the planes, wondering what would happen next. I remember not hearing much from the government in the first few days after the attacks, and then seeing Bush speaking from some Air Force base out west looking bedraggled and confused. Not very reassuring.
It's not all Bush's fault of course. It's us, it's our tendency to turn on one another, to respond out of fear instead of hope. To ignore reality, and attack people who are different. American traits, and human ones, that sometimes cause me to doubt whether our species will ever really learn, and grow. But I remember the times we've risen above, and I hope we can do it again.
That lasted for awhile. But even at the start, some people were saying "fuck all Muslims, they did this to us!" Those voices were a bit tamped down, but grew ever-stronger. Some of us realized that we needed to find the specific people who planned the attacks, bring them to justice, not just make it a crusade against Muslims in general. But we got off track. We lost bin Laden at Tora Bora, then moved on to Iraq for unrelated reasons. I was disappointed in the direction both our government and some of our populace took. We had a moment of solidarity. Bush at worst threw it away, or at best let it slip through our fingers. We had a great moment for America, but it didn't last long.
I remember looking out the window in the days after the attacks and being heartened to see the flag still flying. I remember going to the airport and not being let near the planes, wondering what would happen next. I remember not hearing much from the government in the first few days after the attacks, and then seeing Bush speaking from some Air Force base out west looking bedraggled and confused. Not very reassuring.
It's not all Bush's fault of course. It's us, it's our tendency to turn on one another, to respond out of fear instead of hope. To ignore reality, and attack people who are different. American traits, and human ones, that sometimes cause me to doubt whether our species will ever really learn, and grow. But I remember the times we've risen above, and I hope we can do it again.
Antmusic
Growing up, I listened to all kinds of music. Probably "classic rock" from the '60s and '70s the most, but as the '80s started I got more into alternative rock, punk, new wave. Adam Ant was big back then. His music wasn't deep, but it was different, and catchy. Here are a few that still stick in my head
Antmusic
Stand and Deliver
Goody Two Shoes
Good Sex Rumples The Clothing
Antmusic
Stand and Deliver
Goody Two Shoes
Good Sex Rumples The Clothing
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Jerk Clerk
I am disappointed that Kim Davis and her supporters have so little respect for others. She thinks she has the right to her beliefs, which is true, but also thinks everyone else should live by her beliefs. And let's be clear: she is free to live by her beliefs, as everyone else is. Of course, her beliefs seem to include the right to impose her religion on others, so hey, maybe she really is being discriminated against... See, I'm glad we live in America. We each have as much freedom as possible, only limited when it imposes on others. She can get married four times, twice to the same guy, and while I will roll my eyes at her and ask if she's sure it's a good idea, if I were a county clerk and she came in for a license I would not refuse to let her have it. She is not being forced to marry a woman; but she feels it's fine to force others to follow her religion. I will defend her right to her beliefs, but I will not defend her when she tries to force those beliefs on the rest of us. Just like I'm not going to defend anyone else doing that, whatever their religion. I am particularly put off by the tendency of conservative judges and clerks to be jerks on this issue, refusing to issue any licenses in order to avoid having to issue them to gay couples. It's immature, like a kid saying "it's my toy, and I'm not letting anyone else play with it."
She could have resigned. That would have been the brave thing to do, to keep her dignity, to make a stand. But that's not what she wants- she wants the attention, she wants to be a "martyr," and she wants the money she will make by (possibly) keeping her job and (definitely) getting book deals and all sorts of other goodies from the idiots who support her and the cynics who are using her to make their own piles of cash.
Look, gay marriage is not part of the "central teachings of Jesus." Putting your spin on an issue he said nothing about, while ignoring his very clear opposition to divorce, his commandment not to judge, etc., makes you a hypocrite. We are not a "Christian nation." The founders made sure no religion was in the government. I don't want anyone- Christian, Muslim, whatever- to make rules based on their religion. You know conservatives would be livid if a Muslim were doing something like this. Allowing this would be a bad precedent.
I am disappointed in her, I am surprised she has so many supporters, and I am disgusted by the politicians like Cruz and Huckabee who are using this as a political tool, saying there is a "war on Christianity" when there clearly is not. Not being able to impose your views on others doesn't mean you are being persecuted. Disagreed with, yes. Kept from being an ass, yes. None of us should have the right to force others to live by our own beliefs. I shouldn't be able to do that to you, and I don't want to do that to you. Of course, someone will say "they're imposing their gay liberal agenda on us!" Well, no. They are asking to be treated equally. Telling you that you have to accept others is not forcing you to do anything. You are free to not marry someone of your own sex. You are free to grumble and to post idiotic comments online. Go ahead and live your life that way, and let others live theirs. I will treat you with dignity, but I expect you to return the favor. It's as if conservatives see tolerance as a bad word- "How dare you insist that I let you live your life!" Everyone should be treated equally and with respect. Conservatives don't seem to be able to do that. How sad.
This is funny though:
She could have resigned. That would have been the brave thing to do, to keep her dignity, to make a stand. But that's not what she wants- she wants the attention, she wants to be a "martyr," and she wants the money she will make by (possibly) keeping her job and (definitely) getting book deals and all sorts of other goodies from the idiots who support her and the cynics who are using her to make their own piles of cash.
Look, gay marriage is not part of the "central teachings of Jesus." Putting your spin on an issue he said nothing about, while ignoring his very clear opposition to divorce, his commandment not to judge, etc., makes you a hypocrite. We are not a "Christian nation." The founders made sure no religion was in the government. I don't want anyone- Christian, Muslim, whatever- to make rules based on their religion. You know conservatives would be livid if a Muslim were doing something like this. Allowing this would be a bad precedent.
I am disappointed in her, I am surprised she has so many supporters, and I am disgusted by the politicians like Cruz and Huckabee who are using this as a political tool, saying there is a "war on Christianity" when there clearly is not. Not being able to impose your views on others doesn't mean you are being persecuted. Disagreed with, yes. Kept from being an ass, yes. None of us should have the right to force others to live by our own beliefs. I shouldn't be able to do that to you, and I don't want to do that to you. Of course, someone will say "they're imposing their gay liberal agenda on us!" Well, no. They are asking to be treated equally. Telling you that you have to accept others is not forcing you to do anything. You are free to not marry someone of your own sex. You are free to grumble and to post idiotic comments online. Go ahead and live your life that way, and let others live theirs. I will treat you with dignity, but I expect you to return the favor. It's as if conservatives see tolerance as a bad word- "How dare you insist that I let you live your life!" Everyone should be treated equally and with respect. Conservatives don't seem to be able to do that. How sad.
This is funny though:
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