Bertrand Russell

08/19/2014

Hot Air

GMO Dialogue

Just got some great new links from former Indiana University research biologist and faculty member Martha Crouch.

Marti Crouch Lectures At Franklin College, Fall 2013

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If you’ve been following this communications colossus the last couple of weeks, you know that I happened to meet Crouch at the Book Corner and immediately leaned on her to convince me that GMOs are icky. My stance on genetic engineering can be found in various posts in these precincts (see links below).

I hate to be wedded to any particular train of thought, by and large, because there’s always something new I can learn and it just might contradict that which I’ve previously believed. Bertrand Russell’s old line — I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong — fits quite nicely, thank you.

Russell

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Anyway, Marti, as she’s known to friends and acquaintances, has graciously agreed to set me straight. She wondered why I might be interested in the GMO thang these days and so she wrote in an email she sent me yesterday:

I realize I don’t really know why you are interested in genetically engineered crops. Health reasons? Environmental concerns? Philosophical musings about the relationships between humans and other organisms? And I also don’t know why you are looking for arguments against GMOs. Are you unhappy for some reason with your current position “in favor” (I assume)?

Fair enough. Here’s my response to her, in toto:

Thanks for asking. You might check some of my previous writings on the GMO controversy in the Electron Pencil. In fact, here’s a link to that category.

My overriding motive is to get at some kind of reasonable, informed understanding of genetic engineering. I want to do so because I love science and knowledge, pure and simple. My secondary motive is to try to get people to stop thinking as a group. It’s always been one of my goals as a writer to upend groupthink, to hold the line against hysteria, and to point out that opinions are meaningless unless they’re built upon strong intellectual foundations.

You’ll note, if you delve deeper into my blog, that I poke fun at Bloomington’s food culture a lot. I came here from Chicago in 2009 (after a two-year sidetrack to Louisville) and was amused by how seriously B-towners take their food. It seems everyone’s got some diet or regimen that will ensure fabulous health and happiness for the rest of their lives. It also seems everyone here is certain corporate America is trying to poison us to death simply for the fun of it.

Now I don’t doubt that corporate America doesn’t give a good goddamn about my health or yours, as long as its shareholders are happy at the end of the year, but I also don’t think that scientists employed by the big agribusiness firms are sitting around a conference table and planning to wipe out a percentage of the population.

As I’ve written, for example, Monsanto is a bad guy — we can all agree on that — but that doesn’t mean the company is doing everything in its power to destroy the planet.

I speak in hyperbole here because 1) that’s part of my style and voice and 2) because I feel as though the food fetishists (as I describe them) do so themselves. By shopping at Kroger, I’m not going to die any earlier than I would were I to shop at Bloomingfoods. The argument often is couched in those life and death terms.

I might also point out that I spent five years teaching the public and my fellow employees about natural and organic foods as a member of the Whole Foods Market education department. I learned and taught that individuals’ health and that of the planet can be enhanced by striving for a natural way of eating. I also learned that a huge number of folks within the natural foods community hold apocalyptic views that have little to do with reality.

For all the wonders of natural and organic ways of eating and food production that WFM’s customer base subscribes to, I’ve never seen a more ailment-wracked bunch of people in my life. People who shop at other natural grocers, both national chain and local, in my experience, also have been equally Camille-like. Are they canaries in a coal mine or are they simply obsessed with themselves? Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.

In any case, I want the goods on GMOs, which are today’s bête noire among the natural foods crowd. I’ve been told you’re the real thing when it comes to that topic so that’s why I want to tap your knowledge. I’ll either buy your arguments or I won’t but if I don’t I’ll be able to say I heard all you have to say. Whichever way I go, my opinion will be based on a strong intellectual foundation.

Thanks,

Big Mike

Marti recommends I read the book, The GMO Deception, a compendium of articles and essays edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber and issued in June by Skyhorse Publishing. She says some of her trusted colleagues have essays in the book. That’ll take some time so I’ll report back on that later this summer. She also sent along a copy of one of her seminal works on biotech, a chapter she’d contributed to the 2001 book, Redesigning Life?, edited by Brian Tokar. Her piece is titled “From Golden Rice to Terminator Technology: Agricultural Biotechnology Will Not Feed the World or Save the Environment.”

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Can’t get a much clearer position than that. I’m eager to delve into the chapter. Again, it’ll take time but I’ll give you my impressions as soon as I can.

Looks like the dialogue is in full swing. Stay tuned.

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Dialogue (Part I & II)

Fitting, no?

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10/07/2013

1 Comment

Albert Williams, Bertrand Russell, Charles P. Pierce, Culture Of Fear, Esquire Magazine, Mark Twain, Rat Fuckers, Republican Party, Richard M. Nixon, Rick Perlstein, Tea Party, The Nation Magazine

Hot Air, As Usual

The Joy Of Killing!*

Here’s a follow-up to Saturday’s entry about whether or not it is good policy to want to die for your beliefs.

My assertion was it seems senseless to want to do so. I quoted Bertrand Russell who famously said he’d never do it because what if he was wrong in his beliefs?

A couple of guys eloquently told me and Bertie in the comments section that we were full of shit.

The commenters didn’t cause me to change my mind, despite their well thought out positions. In fact, I’ll add another line of reasoning to my original assertion.

I don’t want to die for my beliefs because, well, my worst and most rabid enemies want me and my beliefs to die. (Not that I have many enemies or, for that matter, any at all; this, keep in mind, is all theoretical.)

Anyway, the more pressing question should be, Would you kill for your beliefs?

Well, Pencillistas, whaddya say?

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[* Quote in headline from Mark Twain’s Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World.]

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Letting Others Do The Work For Me

Now then, here are a few links to interesting things (because I really have nothing else to say today that I haven’t said before or that others haven’t already said.)

◗ h/t to Chicago theater maven Albert Williams who points out Charley Pierce’s Esquire mag blog post about the notorious “ratfuckers” of the Nixon gang back in the 1970s. Pierce asserts they were merely the opening act for later Republican operatives and hijinks-makers.

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◗ You know that study everybody’s talking about, the one that looks into the hearts and minds of the fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Tea Party-ists that now make up more than half of the Republican Party? The interwebs have been flush with opininionation (yup, I just made up the word) on its findings.

Well, here’s the study in toto.

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◗ We’re a bunch of scared rabbits now; for no good reason. Historian and all-around good guy Rick Perlstein explains how and why in The Nation.

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That should hold you over until I feel brilliant again, which probably will be tomorrow morning.

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10/05/2013

2 Comments

Ayn Rand, Bertrand Russell, F-35, Jenny Beth Martin, Lockheed Martin, NPR, Obamacare, Scott Simon, Social Darwinism, Tea Party, Vietnam War

Hot Air

Illumination

So, a guy lights himself on fire in Washington, DC. The rest of us figure the act must somehow be related to whatever lunacy Congress is up to these days.

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Back in the mid-’60s, several Buddhist monks immolated themselves in protest against the corrupt regime that was running the non-nation of South Vietnam into the ground and whom we were about to send in half a million soldiers to prop up. The monks were seen as courageous martyrs.

Will the guy in Washington yesterday be seen as a martyr?

You bet he will, no matter what side of the fence he stands on. As for me, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I stick with Bertrand Russell on this one. He said:

I would never die for my beliefs because I could be wrong.

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Now It’s “Inefficient”

What with millions upon millions of people flooding the interwebs servers and phone lines of the bureaucracy that is running Obamacare, the Me Party-ists and their Republican coat holders in the US House of Representatives have to come up with a new fiction/myth/slander/prevarication…, er, um, lie to justify their rabid opposition to jes’ plain folks getting their hands on affordable health care.

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Prior to this week, of course, the Me Team has screeched that the American people simply do not want Obamacare. Well, kids, tell it to all those millions and millions.

So, now what do they say? I heard a Tea Party squealer talking with Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning. Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots told Simon, “[T]his law is not ready for implementation. All we’re saying is don’t spend our tax money on this law that clearly isn’t ready.”

Oh. Perhaps she’s referring to the flood applicants who got busy signals and error messages. Isn’t that sweet of her? Clearly she cares for all those poor uninsured souls. No?

No.

Big Mike Pronouncement: Tea Party-ists and their pals don’t give a good goddamn about anybody but themselves.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Tea Party-ists and the like would do better if they stopped couching their terms. For instance, why don’t they just come out and say it: If you’re poor, you’re unworthy. If you haven’t won big — or at least fatly and comfortably — in this jungle economy, you should shut up and accept your lot of shit in this life.

I’m telling you, this refreshing crystal clarity wouldn’t turn off a soul who already buys into their Randist, faux-Darwinist, execrable manner of “thinking.”

Anyway, here’s the definitive slapdown to Martin et al‘s dishonesty. A war toy manufacturer by the name of Lockheed Martin has been trying to develop a brand spanking new multipurpose stealth fighter for the US Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy as well as several of our bomb-dropping allies in Europe and elsewhere. The US alone was slated to buy more than 2400 of the airplanes. They’re to be called F-35s.

Not Ready

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One of the selling points of the F-35 was that it would be inexpensive, whatever that means when one talks about the Defense Department and military contractors. Each of the fighters is expected to cost more than $150 million. Lockheed Martin’s hoped for invoice to the people of the United States would total approximately $360 billion. Sheesh, if that’s inexpensive, I’d hate to see the Cadillac version of a stealth fighter.

Anyway, the production and design of the F-35 has, natch, caused eye-popping cost overruns. Not only that, the plane has so far been found to be unsafe, not all that stealthy, and, in computerized war games run by Pentagon geeks who love this kind of stuff, was roundly defeated by old fashioned Russian fighters.

In other words, to paraphrase Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, the F-35 is not ready for implementation.

Can we expect Martin and her cronies to sing out, All we’re saying is don’t spend our tax money on this airplane that clearly isn’t ready?

Neither Martin nor any other Me Party-ist has ever uttered such a line in reference to any war toy program. Nor will they ever.

They are as full of horseshit as anyone this mendacious holy land has yet produced.

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12/02/2012

2 Comments

Apocalypse, Astrud Gilberto, Bertrand Russell, Bigfoot, Corporate Media, David Morrison, Fox News, Mayan Calendar, Melba Ketchum, NASA, Powerball, Richard M. Nixon, Ryder Film Series, Sasquatch

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” — Bertrand Russell

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REALITY CHECK

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: There is no Sasquatch. AKA “Bigfoot,” the creature does not exist.

There are people who call themselves scientists — but who’ve abdicated their privilege to the title — who’d love to get you to believe nonsense.

Dr. Melba Ketchum: She’s Wrong — Trust Me

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Move on with your life. Ponder all the new exo-planets being discovered virtually every day. Stop running around and trying to do everything in the world by noon and listen to the birds in your neighborhood — all of whom are real. If you take a drive on SR 37, glance at the rock wall cutouts along the side of the road and, noting all the layers of sediment, consider that you’re actually looking at millions of years of history.

But, once again, push the notion of Bigfoot out of your mind.

Because if you do believe in Bigfoot, you are indeed out of your mind.

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LOTTERY LOSERS

Here’s another piece of advice. The next time there’s a ginormous Powerball payout, you will not win it.

Statistically Speaking, These People Do Not Exist

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Recent calculations indicate that the odds of winning the average Powerball prize are 1 in 175,223.510. And because last week’s half-billion-buck purse attracted so many new players, those odds shot upward.

So save your dough. Or better yet, just send it to The Electron Pencil; we’ll put it to better use than you blowing it on a racket in which your chance of winning, in essence, doesn’t exist.

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DOOM

Let’s stick with the bunk. Admit it, that whole 2012/End of the World thing rattles around in your braincase every once in a while.

The Mayan Calendar

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As we approach December 21st, the target date for all our lives to go kaputnik (don’t try to find a definition for this word, I just made it up), you can be sure our corporate media newsbeings will be covering this “story” with either a smug, knowing smirk or flat-out idiotic credulity.

I’m dying to see how Fox News covers the impending apocalypse.

To that end, NASA has issued an advisory explaining why our interpretation of the Mayan calendar is screwy. Here’s space scientist David Morrison explaining why you’re a loon if you give even an iota of credence to this end of the world scenario.

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Not that this well-thought-out, expert, fact-based argument will make a molecule of difference for the credulous.

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TRUST ME

Speaking of credibility, I have next to none left after announcing several baker’s dozen times the new Ryder website and the attendant marriage of this site with that one.

Swear to the god I don’t believe in we’re only days away from that long-awaited debut.

Almost There

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I know, I know — you don’t want to hear about the labor pains, you only want to see the baby, so I won’t tell you what an heroic ordeal it’s been to get this thing off the ground. My technical and diplomatic skills have been tested to the extreme, but winners never quit, or so said someone like Dick Nixon, who eventually quit anyway.

So stay tuned and we’ll be making our grand announcement before you know it.

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ONLY TRUST YOUR HEART

Believe Astrud.

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02/23/2012

1 Comment

Andrea Balt, Bertrand Russell, Contraception, Elephant Journal, IDS, Indiana University, Joan Jett, Joy Shayne Laughter, Lita Ford, Mike Cagle, Quantum Mechanics, Richard Feynman, Soma Coffee, The Runaways, Woody Allen

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Those who, in principle, oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence, and famine as permanent features of human life.” — Bertrand Russell

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KINKY STUDENTS

Student academic fraud is on the upswing, according to a piece in the IDS this morning.

We’re talking cheating on a test or hiring a ringer to write a paper, that sort of thing. Some 366 cases of such enhanced achievement misconduct were adjudicated last year. This year the number of cheaters already is approaching that total, according to the article, even though the spring semester isn’t even half over.

Giraffing

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Using last year’s figure, let’s just assume the actual number of cheaters was three times the official number. That gives us a shade under 1100 future Wall Street icons…, er…, I mean, cheaters. That’s a pretty heartening number, no?

When you consider that some 95,000 aspiring scholars attended classes at the seven Indiana University campuses, you realize that only .0038 percent of students are kinky, to use an old alley cop term for lawbreakers.

“So, Cheating On Your Semester Finals, Eh?”

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Not bad, eh? The pressure on college students to succeed, especially in this Great Recession era, is enormous. When only one in approximately 261 students spits on the academic code, in my hypothetical scenario, I think we can safely say IU crammers by and large are honest souls.

The whole subject reminds me of that great Woody Allen line: “I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”

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PRIVATES PARTY

Miles Craig, Crystal Johnson, and Mike Cagle all posted this funny pic on their Facebook pages.

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If the GOP anti-sex league wasn’t so scary, it’d be funny.

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WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS WOMAN

Bloomington author Joy Shayne Laughter paid her respects at Soma Coffee‘s unofficial Big Mike Table this morning when she came in for her daily IV drip. Joy was all agog over an essay she read by a writer named Andrea Balt on the web journal Elephant.

Balt tries to explain women. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joy to pieces, but now, after reading the essay, I’m more confused than ever about those folks who possess different plumbing than I do.

Then again, perhaps my confusion means I really get it now.

Women are like quantum mechanics. As Richard Feynman reportedly said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”

Particle Paths Illustrating Quantum Mechanics Probabilities

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SCHOOL DAYS

Was there ever a cooler girl group than the Runaways?

Joan Jett and Lita Ford are underappreciated among rock ‘n roll experts only because they carried the wrong set of chromosomes in their cells.

And, by the way, doesn’t it look as though Joan Jett is chewing gum in this video? Maybe it’s my imagination, but if she is, it’s the perfect touch.

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The Electron Pencil

Category Archives: Bertrand Russell

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