Kirk Cameron: Son Of Palin

Whenever someone is being a racist, illiterate, religious nut job, I think it should be the new thing to call them a "son of Palin."

Tofurky: The Reason I am Morally Opposed to Vegans

I keep running across articles and discussions about Tofurky and the "curse" of being a vegetarian/vegan on Thanksgiving.

I am not vegetarian or vegan. I do, however, limit my meat intake to one meal a day. On top of that, I also try to live by a rule that I don't eat multiple kinds of animals within a day (though, eggs and bacon 1 or 2 times a week kills this). I watch what I eat and I regularly go to the gym.

I once heard a veggie person tell me, "Humans weren't meant to eat meat." I was dumbfounded. Usually, when I hear something stupid like this, I snap back with something. But this, this was probably the dumbest thing I had ever heard, and the audacity of the for sure manner in which it was said strangled my brain. This absurd statement always comes to me from the back of my mind whenever I hear anything about vegetarians.

Meat is what made us human. Biological anthropologists tell us that eating meat allowed our brains to grow. Furthermore, the hunting and butchering of animals continually reinforced our unique ability to develop tools.

When you give up meat, you are not only giving up the precious proteins and fats your body and brain need, you are forsaking the hardships and the knowledge of your ancestors. When you are at the Thanksgiving table with your arms crossed and you refuse a helping of turkey from your grandmother's outstretched hand, you are not giving thanks. You are selfish, and you are standing alone in your self-righteousness. You are a douche bag.

The review I submitted about my Health Science Class

I really enjoyed this class, and the regular amount of speakers Mrs. Stillner introduced to us. However, there was one class session in which two speakers were present, and I did not see the point of either of them being in the classroom. These speakers were the Naturopath and the Police Officer.

The attendance of the police officer, I found to be just pointless. The Naturopath, however, I found to be utterly reprehensible. I commend myself for finding the ability to not shout obscenities at her, instead focusing my frustrations on my lower lip which had clear indentations from my incisors. A hippie, pseudo-science has no place in the university. It was really painful to sit through, especially as she darted from one stoned hypothesis to another. I shudder everytime I think of her describing the human soul; "the light in your eyes". Only in well-off, white liberal towns would people pay money to visit such a medicine woman. I'm sure she has several rainstick therapies to soothe my irritability.

Self-Destructive Behavior

Yesterday at the gym, I was on the stationary bike, on the program "weight loss". I had the earbuds of my iPod plugged into my earholes (or as my Bio Anth class would call it, my "external auditory meatus"). I wasn't playing any music because I had some reading for a class to catch up on. I only wanted silence.

About three to five minutes into my workout, I hear some grunting from the man on the elliptical behind me. The first time I heard it, it didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary. Then, it became rhythmic. Every twenty seconds, two grunts, three grunts. I noticed this as something called "stimming." This is a behavior closely associated with autism. My brother is autistic, and he makes throat noises that are described as "popping".

Many people who know me may never notice this, but I, too, at times have a stimming disorder. I have, at intervals, had bouts of prolonged blinking, eye-rolling, lip-biting, breath-holding, and what I think could be the strangest: finger counting. When I was 14 and 15, I would go through these periods of plucking the top joints of my fingers to add up to the number five. I would pluck each one, one time for five. Then, two fingers at once, followed by the other three. Four fingers and then one. Needless to say, I probably looked like a freak. People never seemed to notice this last stim, but they would notice my eye-rolling and often call me on it (and not in a nice way).

I think stimming is common amongst siblings of mentally handicapped persons. My only evidence of this is what I have gathered from my own behavior and of a childhood acquaintance of mine. My friend would harshly blink repeatedly, so harsh that his head would jerk down whenever he did it. I'm undecided, however, if stimming is a behavioral trait inherited, or if it is simply caused my prolonged stress. My childhood friend and I, as siblings of severely, mentally handicapped persons (and we both lived in strict religious households, him more so) lived in VERY stressful environments. Looking back on it now, I kind of wish that we would have connected more on this shared struggle, but we were young and too interested in X-Men and basketball cards.

I thought I should add that stimming feels horrible. It makes you hate yourself. You try and stop it yourself, but it is impossible. For me, the only solution has been to physically remove myself from whatever environment was making me stim. This took a long time to realize.

Anyway, this guy at the gym was obviously stimming, but I wasn't sympathetic towards him like I probably should have been. Instead, I became angry. In my head, I was screaming, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and after five minutes worth of hearing his cadenced grunting, I angrily slammed down my book and pushed play on my iPod, blaring Queens of the Stone Age into my head.

Now, I was pedaling faster.

Bus Stop Memories: In the Doorway

Recently, I've been listening to alot of The Misfits (the true version of the band, with Glenn Danzig as the singer), a band who I ADORED when I was 19 to 22. This song "In the Doorway" was released as an "unreleased" song for a reprinting of Static Age in 1997.

I remember carrying my bulky portable CD player, gently nestled in the pocket of an old Air Force jacket my dad gave me, along with my backpack, jampacked with schoolbooks and five or six CDs(each in their respected jewel cases). Waiting and waiting and waiting at the bus stop in the snow in Juneau, or in the red dirt and garbage of Oahu, slowly meandering back and forth, singing this song to myself. I was in love. It's not even 2 minutes long, but it grabbed me, and I don't know how many times I pressed the Prev track button on my CD player.

It seems only a few others really loved this song like I did, and maybe it's not for everybody, but it is for me. The first video here has the original, and the following videos are people doing covers, which I was surprised to find.



Girl with a piano. She does this song so much justice. And such a unique version. I think I love her.



Acoustic (though the audio is a little crazy; keep the volume down):