Category Archives: Culture

Taking what’s offered

March 11, 2015 6:59 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Life has been hectic this year.  Along with the stresses of work and trying to get some side projects going, I have some family responsibilities to tend to and on top of that a cold laid me low for about a week.  With all that going on, I have hardly had any time to relax and enjoy life.

Making plans with friends has been fairly difficult as in some cases I’ve had no certainty when I would have time to relax or if I would have time to relax.  As a consequence I’ve had to make the most of what time I did have to relax.

Programs from some plays that I've recently attended.

Programs from some plays that I’ve recently attended.

One thing that I’ve been relying on lately has been Houston’s outstanding theater scene.  Ranging from off broadway touring companies to small venues to amateur dinner theater, we are extraordinarily blessed with a lot of acting talent in this town.

The nice thing about the local theater scene is that it is usually fairly easy to get tickets, they are rarely sold out.  The theaters are usually fairly small so even the “cheap seats” are good seats.  The acting and production values of the local troops are fairly high so you get more than you pay for.  Lastly, most theater companies have online ticket sales so I can usually book a seat just hours before a performance.

Comparing this to movies?  In some ways better and in some ways not as good but I would not say worse.  I mean with movies of course you can be totally immersed in the story world.  It’s all very visual and the story is all there to see.  With plays you have to use some imagination.  Even the most lavish stage props and backgrounds won’t look totally real.  But with a live human actor right in front of you speaking the lines and instilling the lines with emotion you somehow get more into the story than you would with a movie. Difficult to explain unless you’ve been to one of these plays.

For me at least these plays have helped take the edge off life lately and have given me a bit of a release on those days that life seems to be ganging up on me.

If you ever need to take the edge off or if you are just curious, I would highly recommend it.

 

Posted in: activities, culture, current events, entertainment, Houston, theater

The Rodeo and the new Houston

March 9, 2015 5:50 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Houston has been struggling hard for the last few years to shed its “hick” and “cowboy” labels and take its place as a cosmopolitan city that it is and as a nexus for several different cultures to mix and mingle.  Yet at its core it still retains some of that wild west persona.

This becomes extremely evident at the end of February and in early March when the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo takes place.  The Rodeo was and is a celebration of Houston’s agricultural and ranching ties.  A throwback to the days when cattle trails wound their way up and down the state and more people worked in and around Houston in the cattle and livestock industries.

For generations, Houston kids could go downtown with their families and watch goggle eyed as the cowboys rode in a parade in their western finery and marching bands played and all manner of floats and displays rolled past.  They could then go to the Rodeo and look at the animals and talk to the cowboys and just take in the country culture.

Eventually music acts were added to the Rodeo.  Some of the music isn’t even country music and truthfully the musical acts are now a big part of the Rodeo.  In fact for some that’s all that the Rodeo represents to them.  I think without the music the Rodeo itself would have been much diminished and would not be having record crowds.

As it stands now the Rodeo is an integral part of the Houston experience.  Something that can really be only found here.  I think that it’s a positive for Houston.  As much as I would like to see Houston “grow up” and become more worldly, to have more culture, to be thought of as a first rung city (and it is, I admit it we’ve done amazing things in the last 20 years), I still want it to retain some of its own character.

I don’t want us to become a clone of one of the eastern cities, or another Los Angeles.  I want us to become our own city.  Incorporate the best aspects of other cities, add in the valuable contributions of our large immigrant populations from all over the world, but retain something of what Houston was.

If we can do all those things we can build a city that people will want to come and see, a city that others will want to emulate.  Part of that process is embracing events like the Rodeo and helping it flourish.  Events like this give us something special and point to as uniquely Houstonian.

Posted in: activities, Astrodome, culture, current events, Houston, life in general

Is beauty necessary?

February 15, 2015 11:21 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note:  This is the next in a series of writing challenges first proposed to me by Leslie Farnsworth.  Leslie has organized and expanded the challenge to include a larger group of excellent blog writers.  Once per month, one member of the group will propose a topic and we will all give our own unique take on the subject.  This latest installment was proposed by Rebecca Harvey.  You may want to look at the other bloggers listed below to see what they came up with:]

My thinking on this topic began with meditating on the topic of beauty itself.  Why does it exist in the first place?  Why are some things beautiful and some things ugly and how do we make the distinction?

We all have our preferences in life.  No matter what the subject is, no matter how public or personal, we know what we like and what we don’t like.  Generally these things have to do with the more basic and primal aspects of our being.  Those aspects that determine our survival.

Throughout evolution the beauty aspect has helped the individual find that member of the opposite gender that presented the best possible chance that one’s offspring would not only survive but prosper.  As environmental conditions change or a species moves into a new territory sometimes the requirements for surviving changes and beauty standards may change as well.  As a tangent line of thought, this may also be where fashion originates, but that’s something to think about another day.

For humans and our immediate predecessors, beauty standards dictated that our potential mates be in generally good physical condition, be larger than other potential mates, and have some advantageous adaptation to the local environment.

Of course this standard varied from situation to situation and from time to time.  Cultural norms have come to play a huge role in what we consider to be beautiful.  Some cultures will accentuate or even exaggerate some body part that is considered desirable.  Those cultures would use clothing, make up, or body modification to achieve the desired look.  These practices can of course be carried to extremes.  In certain cultures around the world being fat and having poor or no teeth was considered beautiful as it meant that the particular individual had access to excess food supplies and in particular access to sugar which for a very long time was a luxury food item.  Even though having poor dental hygiene is in fact a sign of bad health the practice continued on until the improvement of economic situations in these cultures made this a less desirable beauty trait.

As I said previously culture plays a big role in what we consider to be beautiful.  Wealth is an aspect of culture that can dictate how we or other people live their lives.  Whether we measure wealth by number of farm animals we own, or land we control, or pieces of paper we have in a bank.  Money represents power and power has always been beautiful whether we like it or not.

But do we still need the old beauty standards of good health and attractive features?  In the urban situation where most humans live,  where we no longer have to hunt for food or run away from predators or scavenge and go hungry for weeks or months at a time and where physique is no longer as important, is it still valid to judge others with those old beauty standards?  Surely if you are searching for a potential mate and you take into consideration their ability to earn wealth then a potential mate is to be judged by their ability to think, plan, and create content and thus participate in the idea economy rather than by their physical development and their ability to chop wood, or plow a field, or hunt.

That would be true in an ideal world but one thing we have begun to discover is that this human built environment has its own challenges.  Sedentary lifestyles now represent the largest danger to those living in cities.  We have access to too much food and little need to exert ourselves as vigorously as we once did.  Heart disease, diabetes, and cancers are the biggest killers of all these days.  Diseases that were previously kept in check by harder and more physical lifestyles.  Those individuals that work out and keep fit are still considered beautiful as they seem to reject the sedentary lifestyles that lead to these diseases.

A secondary consideration relating to our new economy is that you may have the best ideas in the world but if you can’t convey those ideas to large groups of other people then your idea won’t be successful.  As our means of communications are becoming more and more visual and as our minds respond better to beautiful things, even if just sub-consciously, then  we turn again to the old beauty standards.  We trust the beautiful, we listen to the beautiful, we envy the beautiful.  The ugly, not so much.  One famous example was the Kennedy-Nixon debate.  Those that listened to the event on radio gave the debate to Nixon as the more persuasive speaker but the vast majority of the population that saw the event on TV gave the debate to the younger and more attractive Kennedy.

So is beauty necessary?  I wouldn’t call it necessary as I would call it a factor to be aware of and something to take into consideration. I think we have to be aware that beauty does play a factor in our lives however much we may eschew this and even think this a banal consideration it does exist and does have the power to alter our decision-making process.

Posted in: blogs, culture, fashion, genetics, ideas, life in general, psychology, relationships, thought

in defense of bad dietary habits

October 2, 2014 7:07 AM , Leave a Comment ,

A series of articles have come out in the last year concerning the intake of salt in our diets and its impact on our general health.  One study concluded that there was no marked benefit in limiting salt intake and another concluded that there were some risks in having an abnormally low salt diet.

I have also read reports on the benefits of caffeine and negligible risks posed by caffeinated coffee for seniors with Alzheimer’s disease.

Quite a turnaround from the late 60’s onwards when these were demonized food items to be avoided at all costs.  Now of course these recent studies come with all sorts of conditions and caveats about not overdoing it.  But back when these dietary restrictions came into place there were no stipulations made.

All of these recent findings began in the late 80s with studies looking into the benefits of wine for people with heart disease.  This was based on anecdotal evidence and folk beliefs among Europeans that “wine cuts grease” and that imbibing wine helped people digest food with high fat content.  The benefits were not all that great but they are somewhat present.

When we started getting warnings about salt, caffeine, and other things that we ingest, the studies back then didn’t blush or mince words.  They were unapologetically negative about these things.  No reservations, no qualifiers.  These things were bad.  Avoid at all costs.  Better to err on the side of safety and all that.

But now we get revised research and we do get conditions.  What’s a person to believe?

Perhaps people should follow their common sense more and listen to speculative research less.  I don’t expect any time soon to see a study lauding or praising the benefits of smoking, or binge drinking, or an all lard diet. Even the most rudimentary common sense tells you that inhaling smoke isn’t good for you.  Your liver will take issue with you over drinking all the time.  Your bowels will exact revenge for eating so much fat all the time.

I think we all know what we need to do.  Namely don’t overdo it on any food item and get off the couch more.

No one can seriously believe that chain-smoking or drinking all the time will lead to a healthy life but I don’t see the harm of occasionally indulging in some “forbidden food” or treat that was considered bad for you for so long.  As long as your overall eating habits remain healthy and you live an active lifestyle I say pass the salt, please.

Posted in: culture, diet, health

Why I don’t support pressuring the Redskins to change their name and why they should do it

June 26, 2014 6:40 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s no secret that I am no fan of censorship in any form.  I do not agree with any forms of restriction on speech in any format.  Whether it’s censorship in some sort of art form or in actual words.  Using the threat of force or law to alter or diminish speech is wrong no matter what the intention.

Many people will say that when the subject becomes objectionable that it becomes difficult to justify my stance on free speech.  People will say that some things need to be curtailed or dissuaded for the greater good of society as a whole.  Another argument is that pragmatism demands that although ideally we should be allowed to say what we want that reality demands that some sacrifices be made for the greater good.

These are the arguments of those that already have made up their minds and are just casting about for an excuse to justify censorship.

Nowhere is there a greater need to allow free expression than in those things that we deem objectionable.  The unpopular opinion, mindset, or idea needs to be present and readily accessible in the public discussion.  It may seem a small, insignificant point to exclude those ideas that we don’t like but any disruption to the stream of ideas that are available to the public creates a rift, a chasm that will ripple outwards towards other ideas that you may agree with.  Maybe not today or tomorrow but eventually.

If for no other reason these ideas have to be expressible and accessible to future generations at the very least as educational examples of the way that humans can be cruel to each other and may be cruel again in the future.  The key to not committing the errors of the past is to study them in the future.

Now as to the Redskins football team in particular, why should they voluntarily change their names?  Well, the very property that they seek to protect (the name, the logo, etc) is now damaged beyond repair.  It’s now well established that a large number of people find the name objectionable and that they consider it to be something hurtful and downright insulting.

The fan base that treasures the brand is going to age and slowly disappear over time.  The younger fan base will not support the brand and as a result they will lose fan support.

The pragmatic argument to change the brand is that it is no longer tenable or desirable to keep.  Changing the brand to something else is the smart course of action to maintain the fan base of support and keep the franchise going for the long-term.  But whatever they do, they should do it on their own.

 

 

 

 

Posted in: culture, football, language, pop culture, prejudice, racism, sports

separating the message and the messenger

June 20, 2014 6:32 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I recently read a book review about a biography of the Author Robert Heinlein.  The review itself wasn’t all that great.  In fact it made me seriously wonder if the reviewer had actually ever sat down and read any Heinlein at all.  The review had many glaring errors and the reviewer drew totally wrong conclusions from his apparently cursory study of Heinlein.

But it did serve to spark a question in my mind.  What happens when you don’t like the author but like his message or when you like the author and don’t like his message.  Are the two inseparable? Or can we look at one without noting the other?

Last year a movie based on the novel Ender’s game was released with a dark cloud of controversy centering on the author Orson Scott Card and his views on homosexuality.  The novel itself came out to great acclaim in the mid 1980’s and won several accolades and awards.  Some in the military study it for its lesson in tactics and leadership.

Card wrote some articles in the 90s that were against same-sex marriage and when these came to light they caused several boycotts to be declared against the movie.  The movie itself bombed in the box office and plans to film the sequels to the novel were permanently shelved.

Card is hardly the first writer or artist to have controversy swirl round his name that would taint his artistic contributions.  The writer, William Burroughs, shot his wife in Mexico and exited the country before he would have been prosecuted.  The director, Roman Polanski, was convicted of rape and to this day will not set foot inside the US.  In their cases however their artistic careers remained largely intact.  Fans seem to have forgiven them for their actions.

This “forgiveness” seems to be tied into the personality of the artist or how popular that their work is.  H.P. Lovecraft is widely reckoned to be the grandfather of the horror genre and most modern horror writers acknowledge his contributions.  What is less acknowledged is that he was an extremely prejudiced individual.  Most supporters quickly apologize for his behavior by saying that his attitudes were commonplace for the era that he lived in.

I find it to be a very complex question.  Bad behavior cannot and should not be brushed aside.  People have to stand by their actions and words.  On the other side of the coin is the argument that a marvelous piece of art or idea is a marvelous piece of art or idea.  That also can’t be just brushed aside.

What’s the answer?

Posted in: books, culture, ideas, thought

Comparative Myths II

June 14, 2014 6:58 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s been a while since my last post on myths.

The great flood.  Why is it so universal?  What makes it stand out among other shared myths?  Surprisingly the flood myth is even more common among cultures than creation myths

The simple answer would be that it does recall the biblical flood mentioned in Judeo-Christian religious texts

Genesis 6:5

“The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.  So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air for I am grieved that I have made them.”

But really you must look past the superficial similarities and look behind the story as to what caused the flood and how it came to be.

The version of events we know as the great flood can find parallels in earlier stories from Babylonian sources such as the epic of Gilgamesh wherein King Gilgamesh is told the story of Utnapishtim, the only man to survive the great flood, and who tells him how the gods became concerned that mankind had grown too numerous and after trying to cut down human numbers by fire, famine, and disease the gods turned to flood to wipe out mankind.

This story in turn is an almost word for word copy of an earlier Accadian story written down about 1700 BC.  Morality tales about what can happen if man doesn’t mend his ways.

But floods themselves carry different messages.  In Indonesia, the story tells of Naga-Padoha, the great snake that carries the world on its back, and one day gets tired of carrying that load and shrugs everyone off its back into the sea.  The gods saved one woman and later returned the earth onto the snakes back.  Possibly this is a reference to the many earthquakes and tsunamis in the region (see the Indian ocean tsunami of 2006)

In Australia the aborigines tell of a great frog during the dreamtimes that drank up all the water and caused a drought.  The other thirsty inhabitants made the great frog laugh and it released all the waters out at once causing great floods.  Most probably an allusion to the extreme drought and rainy seasons of parts of Australia.

The Germanic tribes speak of Ymir the first giant being killed by the Norse gods and that he bled so much that most of the other giants drowned in his blood save for one couple.  Most people don’t know that the part of the North sea known as Jutland was in fact at one time dry land and that it was indeed inhabited by early humans.

In the Americas we have flood myths ranging from Canada down to Peru.  The twist here is that some relate to their creation stories.  There is a theme among these cultures that there have been worlds before ours and that they were destroyed before ours came into creation.  One such example is the Navajo story of flood.  Coyote was a trickster and one day he kidnaps a child of the great sea serpent Tieholtsodi.  The great serpent desperate to find its child floods the world.  The people discuss what to do, so they piled 4 great mountains on top of each other and climb, as the flood increased, they planted a great vine and climbed out of their world into the 4th world, but the waters kept rising so they climbed up to the 5th world.  Finally tired of climbing they forced coyote to return the child and the flood stopped.

This idea of emergence and multiple worlds is also found in other cultures, but well explore that at a later time.

So why floods?  Well flooding it IS nearly universal.  Unless you live on Mt Everest, any part of the world can flood.  What better symbol of the displeasure of a deity is there than the horrifying destruction caused by a flood?  Cast your minds back a couple of years after Hurricane Katrina and how some religious leaders claimed it was divine retribution on New Orleans for all its wicked ways.  If anything it was retribution for decades of neglect and mismanagement at all levels of government.  But that’s politics and not mythology.

There are two other possible explanations that do seem to hold a kernel of truth.

Humanity arose just as a great ice age was waning.  Sea levels had been much lower and early humans had settled on land that today is submerged.  As the ice melted and sea levels rose they would find a lot of land being threatened by the sea.  There is some evidence that this happened in particular around the Black sea area where many early communities had settled and that indeed a great flood did occur.

The second explanation is more mundane.  As the earth has shifted and moved due to plate tectonics a lot of fossil beds have ended up on dry land.  Fish, shells, reptiles fossils are found in the rock.  The natural assumption to early man is that the land had been flooded sometime in the past and this is the proof.

However its explained or viewed the universality of the flood myth is one of those shared cultural traits that shows how similar we all are in some very basic ways.

Posted in: culture, myths

you don’t deserve a thing

May 29, 2014 6:16 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was writing up a post on conventions in general but current events have taken precedence and I will release that post another day.  Over the weekend another in a seemingly endless series of mass murders took place in California.  A young man injured 13 people and killed 7 including himself in a vengeance rampage that seemed to be fueled by his lack of a love life.

I first heard about this on Monday and the online article that I read linked to his last YouTube video where he explained what he was going to do.  It was a 7 minute long self-pitying rant about how his love life was unsatisfactory and how he had done everything required of him to “get a girl” and how he literally blamed the entire world for what he was now going to do.  He apparently also wrote a 100+ page long manifesto that went into more detail but after hearing his video I felt I didn’t need to hear more.

One thing that struck me is the way he continued to use words like “deserve” or “fair”.  He said that for all his efforts he deserved love and that women were not being fair by denying him that love.  In his mind they were not people.  He in fact refers to them as animals.  To him they were merely prizes to be won if he put in the hard work and effort.  He really didn’t care about their happiness or what they wanted.  All he cared about was his own happiness.

This holds up an uncomfortable mirror up to all the male gender and how we relate to women around us.  Do we really see the women in our lives as equals?  Or do we instead see them at best as second-class citizens and at worst as inanimate objects to be used at our discretion?

What’s particularly troubling is this idea that there is a magic formula for “being loved” and that it’s all a merit based system.  The notion that if you persist enough and do all the right things that eventually you will wear down the woman of your dreams and make her your own, regardless of how she feels about it.  This turns the woman into an objective to be won and conquered and is pure misogyny plain and simple.

In this life you don’t deserve a thing.  You are not guaranteed to get the woman of your dreams, guys.  If you’re going to find that true love of your life then it has to be a two-way street and the attraction has to be mutual.  If it’s not there, then it’s not there and it’s time to move on and get on with your life.

Posted in: culture, current events, feminism, life in general, relationships

How much farther we still have to go

May 1, 2014 6:21 AM , 2 Comments ,

The current big news is that of the owner of a professional basketball team being recorded making some racist remarks.  He will probably face stiff penalties for his actions.

Last year an actor and popular commentator was overheard making anti-gay remarks and lost his job.  A few weeks ago he did it again on a social media site.

A few years ago a presidential candidate was recorded saying he didn’t care about a large percentage of the American people.  A remark that contributed to his loss in the election.

All of these people have been penalized for their actions.  As these events were widely reported in the media, the expectation is that there will be some sort of sanction for what they have said.  You would think after a couple of examples that people would learn.  But as it continues to happen it makes me seriously wonder how many people are really open minded and don’t pre-judge or hold prejudicial thoughts.

I mean these are all people that are constantly in the limelight.  They are used to being scrutinized and inspected all the time.  They are not ignorant or new to contemporary social trends.  Yet when push comes to shove or when they feel relaxed they easily and naturally go with their prejudicial attitudes.

I have to wonder if these are just the dying spasms of attitudes held by older generations or if this is really symptomatic of attitudes and ideas held by a majority of people in secret.

Posted in: culture, current events, prejudice

the dream diminished

April 25, 2014 6:36 AM , 3 Comments ,

I was digging through my linen closet the other day, sorting out useful and useless stuff.  In the back of the closet I found some old bath towels that I had not seen in ages.  They were plush and fluffy terry cloth towels and though a little threadbare they were still useful.

My parents had bought these for me way back when I got my first college apartment.  I think they bought them at a Target or Sears or some such place.  What struck me as odd is how good they were.  I mean back in the early 90s when they bought them they were low to middle class bath towels, nothing special.  I compared them to some designer towels from a high-end department store that I bought a couple of years ago and there was no comparison.  These old towels put the new ones to shame.

What was going on?  I looked on the tags and found part of the answer.  The old towels were 100% terry cloth cotton.  The new ones were 40% rayon.

But it’s not just a case of towels.  The more I thought about it over the next few days, the more I realized that the quality of various things had decreased.  The new things were still adequate, still useful, but the quality of the materials, the design, the craftsmanship had deteriorated.  Over the long haul we have grown slowly accustomed to accepting less and expecting less.

Another unrelated event.  A new apartment building went up in flames during construction recently.  On a local radio station a fire fighter commented that older buildings usually took between 30 and 40 minutes to be fully engulfed in flames due the materials and building standards used, while new buildings could go up in about 5 minutes.

I wonder how an archaeologist from a thousand years in the future might view these facts.  Would she look at artifacts from the 1950s and compare them to the 2000s and conclude that she had found the dividing line between the rise and fall of our civilization?

It’s not just physical artifacts that have deteriorated over time but services as well.  I vaguely remember my first ride on an airplane back in the 70s.  I think we were going to see my grandparents in North Carolina and I recall that the airport was a giant open and well-lit mall-like area.  The passengers were well dressed and we had no security to worry about in those days.  The plane seemed huge and the seats were over sized and plush.  The flight crew was happy and eager to help.  If I had to summarize the experience in one word it would be luxurious.

These days the airports are crowded, dingy, moodily lit bus stations.  The passengers dress any which way they want, they are forced into lines to wait and be searched like common criminals and are then forced into tiny hard plastic and metal seats in the plane.  The flight crews are overworked and surly and I would summarize the experience as dilapidated.

What has improved (arguably) is the entertainment available to the populace.  The quantity of distractions accessible to the average citizen has skyrocketed not only in the amount but in the variety available.  Anyone, regardless of income can now purchase music players, video players, game consoles, or portable computers and access entertainment choices ranging from sports, to music, to shows and movies, to games that will serve to distract them at home or even on the subway ride home.

For those that can look past the entertainments there is an avalanche of information inundating the senses.  Pundits sort through it all and tell us what to make of it and blame “the other side” for our problems.

Have we become so satiated and numbed by pop culture and media that we don’t notice the concrete decline in our living standards or am I being overly harsh and critical about the way that the world works these days?

Have I finally succumbed to the “old man’s disease” of comparing things to the good old days?

Posted in: consumerism, culture, future, life in general, thought