No More Monkey Business

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The Bees' Needs

Dear Bees,

Okay, what's the story? What's going on here? Why is it that I've been reading all these articles about how you guys are just up and vanishing without a trace? They've been calling it "Colony Collapse Disorder", but in all honesty none of us know what we've done to make you go away. Was it something we said? Something Don Imus said? Cause we took care of him. You don't have to worry.

Did you guys just want some attention? I could see that. We humans certainly owe you some better press, especially after all those "Killer Bee" scares of the 1990's, but that's no reason to just pack up shop and disappear. I thought we had a deal. We teach our kids not to whack your hives with sticks and you pollinate some of our crops. It's been quid pro quo up til now -- mutual respect all the way -- a bipartisan agreement between our two species. But now, our farmers need you. They can't grow some of our delicious foods without ya. Can you even imagine a world without apples, cucumbers, cranberries, and almonds? What are aging women gonna put on their eyes? And you try explaining to a girl with a urinary tract infection that there is no more cranberry juice, cause I'm not gonna. So, bees, this is where we stand today -- America needs you, the cucumbers need you, and, hell, I need you, and I want to take this opportunity to inquire as to what we've done to deserve this.

Bill Maher recently pointed out that Einstein once said:

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

I can't sleep on that. But even though our human scientists don't know why you left, but I think I have an idea. It's our movies, isn't it? Well, let me be (pun most definitely intended, fellas, and your majesties) the first to apologize for all those Killer Bee tv movies from the 70's. I promise you we didn't enjoy them either. We painted you with an unfair brush and for that we are sorry. Or maybe it was something else. Was it the guy who wore a beard of you? It was inappropriate and offensive and I believe that the Anti-Defamation League dealt with him accordingly, so you don't have to worry about being a replacement for facial hair any more.

Come to think of it, was it the time that the guy in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids rode one of you? Bees, psst, listen closely,(whispered) no one even remembers that movie. Seriously. It was a flash in the pan, and unsavory burp in American cinema and nothing more. Wait! That's it! We just haven't put you in good movies, right? I mean I don't blame ya, but oh man, bees, have I got news for you -- Jerry Seinfeld will be lending his iconic voice to an animated character in his upcoming film, Bee Movie. Did you hear that? One of our most beloved comedians will be playing a bee! What more can we do to show you our appreciation?

So, let's make up, bees. Hey, why don't you guys drop by the premiere and enjoy the show. You can hobnob with Spielberg, Seinfeld, and I hear Chris Rock is in the movie as well. So, be there or bee square. Eh? Whatcha say? If you liked that pun think of what Seinfeld can do!

"You can catch more flies with honey," we humans like to say. Well ain't nothing sweeter than an animated comedy, but if you bees don't start coming back that expression won't even make sense to future generations. And neither will the stories that I try to tell my grandkids about cucumbers and almonds. So let's start again on the right foot and make the 21st Century an era of harmony and honey.

Many happy returns,

The Dissentators

Can You Imagine Fifty People a Day...Friends, They May Think It's a Movement

To build upon some of my previous posts concerning what I feel is our society's lacklustre public dialogue (the ease with which we can dismiss a candidate for the smallest of bad PR, a general gleeful indignation with which we confront those that offend (clearly, this has a special significance with the recent Imus affair)). As I have been living in South Africa for the past two months, with only 3-4 channels to scan through on my tv (one of which plays cricket at all hours, an wholly unwatchable sport), my televised intake has grown increasingly focused and honed -- to the point that I basically watch clips from Comedy Central, MSNBC, and Real Time with Bill Maher, and dip the occasional finger into the Fox News gruel (Please, Sir, can I NOT have some more). This very limited and admittedly biased exposure to television, however, has afforded me the perspective that I needed to find some of these more deleterious trends in our national discourse.

On a fairly recent episode of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton -- an extremely controversial figure and one of Bush's more antagonistic appointees. Bolton proposes his philosophy regarding presidential appointees, submitting that it is the duty of the president and his job to represent those (presumably solely those) who voted for him and appoint people who share his overall ideologies. Stewart returned with the example of Lincoln in reference to Lincoln's cabinet that was made up of a broad spectrum of political loyalists, many of whom disagreed with their President. So, with Stewart's more than reasonable historic example not even fully out of his mouth, Bolton quickly dismisses him, saying something to the effect of "I don't think you're right on the history there." The trend that this example...ahh, exemplifies is the envocation of historical citations, used either to dismiss the person you are debating or to silence the conversation. (Luckily, Jon has his own show and answered back the next night.)

In our current age, for those arguing on the rationally wanting side of a debate, a victory can achieved if you have managed to undermine your opponent's ability to prove their point, however honest and rational it may be (in fact, the more rational thier point the bigger your victory for not letting them make it). Do you, reader, remember the game "500"? One kid is the Thrower and shouts out a number (100, 200, 300, you get the idea) as he throws a ball into a small crowd of would-be catchers. If you were amongst this group and the ball is clearly out of your reach, your best bet is to somehow sabotage anyone elses chance of catching it. That's basically what this argumentative tactic is -- to use esoteric knowledge of history to silence you opponent or to dismiss someone else's knowledge out of hand is like pantsing the guy next to you so he won't catch the ball. A stretch? I think not.

So, here is my proposal. When someone tries to throw some irrelevant, yet oddly impressive factoid from American History your way, just smirk back and say, "Well, Tippecanoe and Fuck You, too!" And be sure to emphasis the last bit with all the gravitas of Lt. Col. Frank Slade. My theory, and I have not yet put it in practice, is that this will nullify any ground they have gained in the debate with their useless historical reference. I mean, what could they say back to that?You'll have beaten them at their own game. It's actually quite breathtaking. The rebuttle both alludes to an esoteric piece of American history (William Henry Harrison's 1840 campaign slogan) and also piques with a sort of ironic cruedity.

So, If you find yourself (in a dark alley and would like to press ahead, please turn to pg. 138) in a heated debate with Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher, or have inadvertently landed on a bar stool next to John Bolton and over a few too many rounds of shots enter into a political argument, don't let them garble the debate by trying to stun you with unecessary trivia. Just remember what we said, and they won't know what hit 'em.

Note: There is a definite distinction between admissible and warranted historic references for use in political discourse, this post only refers to those that are unecessary and used to spite or dismiss rather than enliven and edify.

I'd Like To Have a Word With You

A Hypothetical Dialogue: A Coffee Shop, where a philosopher reunites with his old friend

Philosopher: Good to see, my old friend. You don't even know how grateful I am -- I’ve been waiting, you see. I desperately need to tell someone...
Friend: What? What is it?
Philosopher: Well, Old Friend, I have discovered the meaning of life. It’s very exciting and I wanted you to be the first to know. I mean, for me to have kept this to myself so long is almost felonious. So, without further ado –
Friend: (aghast) What did you say?
Philosopher: What?
Friend: Oh I can’t believe this.
Philosopher: I don’t understand. What did I say?
Friend: ‘Felonious’? Hello, excuse me, my father was a felon.
Philosopher: I, I – I’m sorry. It’s been so long. I didn’t remember.”
Friend: I should have known it would be like this. It’s just like you people.
Philosopher: (aghast) What did you say?
…

While the ethos behind early forms of Political Correctness had noble aims in its attempt to update our socioeconomic lexicon, offering many a break from past oppression and misrepresentation, there are times when I wonder if the enforcement of political correctness serves a contradictory purpose. When the views and ideas of those, labeled "politically incorrect", are dismissed as entirely incorrect, then we all have lost something -- new barriers have been set in place and occasional truths are obscured.


In an extremely well-written essay on the subject, a blogger named Zuky states:
"Underlying every complaint of "PC" is the absurd notion that members of dominant mainstream society have been victimized by an arbitrarily hypersensitive prohibition against linguistic and cultural constructions that are considered historical manifestations of bigotry. It's no coincidence that "PC"-snivelers are for the most part white men who are essentially saying, 'Who the hell do these marginalized groups think they are to tell me how I should or shouldn't portray them?'."

Though I agree that many criticisms of political correctness tend to fall into this category, I believe that we have moved past the 1990's application of the term, for it no longer remains the tool of the oppressed, the forsaken members of particular racial or religious minorities. In America post 9/11, the values shifted from politically correct and politically incorrect to patriotic and unpatriotic -- dissent was tantamount to treason -- and with a nagging irony, the host of a show entitled "Politically Incorrect", Bill Maher lost his sponsors and soon after the show after remarking:
''We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.'' Leading to former Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer to offer a warning: ''The reminder is to all Americans, that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and that this is not a time for remarks like that.” (In 2004, Fleischer wrote to the NYT to explain the statement). The political correctness exemplified during this period no longer resided in the context of cultural oppression, rather it was entirely political and driven by nationalist sentiment. You're either for us or you're for the terrorists. And, sadly, this narrative continues in our political debate today.

When the mechanisms of political correctness are divorced from their original context -- that of erasing historically bigoted terminologies -- and applied to ideologies and fundamentalist causes, they serve only to ossify the dividers that PCness once aimed to dissolve. And the consequences can have dire effects. Would the Senate have been so deaf to optional courses during the 2002 vote for the Iraq War Resolution, if the climate had not been so defensively patriotic? In a truly open forum, opinions are not dismissed out of hand, and yet it is this very type of dismissal that accompanies political correctness in all its forms.

Sadly, the close mindedness previously reserved for those staunch bigots, described in Zuky's essay, now appears more pronounced in the actions of those that feel offended. On university campuses, where fumdamentalist religious faith has eclipsed liberal political correctness, "it seems the more religious students become, the less willing they are to engage in critical reflection about faith."

"Distinguished scholars at several major universities in the United States have been condemned, even subjected to death threats, for proposing psychological, sociological or anthropological interpretations of religious texts in their classes and published writings. In the most egregious cases, defenders of the faith insist that only true believers are qualified to teach their religious tradition."

Whether it be the patriotic correctness after 9/11 or the "religious correctness" displayed in our universities, they form a culture of reaction. Our public discourse has been so plagued in recent years by such ideological pollutants that we appear more interested in what is "correct" than what may be necessary for unified progress or even just for some peace and quiet. I'm particularly dismayed by the stories from college campuses, where the mind should be engaged in skeptical appraisal of all it once held true. Curiosity and multifaceted examination do not promote nihilism; they are no threat to core beliefs or cultural identities. Higher education seeks to promote openness to conflicting opinion and complex thought over blind faith. When we immediate dismiss the truth of one's opinion because we find something offensive in their approach, then we have dismissed reaching our own potential. When one "politically incorrect" statement defines all further statements as incorrect, then our differences will not only be left unresolved, but will only grow more polarized.

In a recent incident on the Duke campus (not that one), a legal recruiter was overheard out of context, "quoting a Waco, Tex., prosecutor in a 1920s murder case in which Leon Jaworski, one of [his] firm’s founding partners, represented a black defendant." In an attempt to prove his firms history of defending the rights of minorities, the recruiter was immediately chastised for the wrongly perceived bigotry of his words.

Just as with the philosopher and his old friend, we too often escape a confrontation of ideas with preemptive dismissal. In a Hegelian dialectic, we begin with a thesis followed by its antithesis, only to end up with a synthesis. In order to arrive at such an understanding, we must not only recognize what is "other", but what is shared. Though Hegel did influence Marxist philosophy, so I guess he's just a communist, even if only indirectly, and we got nothing to learn from him.

Well, I Do Declare

If Thomas Jefferson were around today and loved his blogs, he may have included these complaints into his off-the-cuff, man of the people, style punditry:

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
...
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
...
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
...
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
...
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
...
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

You tell 'em, TJ. Show me what you're working with. It seems a little to fitting that these accusations were aimed towards a ruler named George within the lines of The Declaration of Independence, though perhaps this connection should embolden us to speak out a little more -- not with useless, flailing spite, but, like Jefferson and his peers, with poised indignation properly distilled into some powerful prose. For any who might be wondering, I am not implying that we wage war against the administration or even impeach President Bush, though there certainly are grounds for such an action. Check out this video for Bill Maher's opinion on the subject: