Elevator Etiquette, Formatting, and Constipation

So I’ve got a few things to just get off of my chest - some things to report as it were.  I’ve been trying to absorb as much of medical school as it will allow (which is an all-together different post) and that has proven to be a struggle because of a few minor distractions.

First off, I am sick of wordpress not offering proper formatting options.  I’ve been trying to just insert a damned carriage return and a tab in my paragraphs, formatting them like ANY OTHER DOCUMENT, but it just won’t work.  Can some willing, random wordpress blog surfer please leave me a comment that tells me how to achieve this simple task?  I also wish wordpress had a WYSIWYG type of interface - I’d love to drag, drop, and position a picture into a certain place on my blog.  Such is the price of HTML ignorance I suppose.

Next, I’m quite annoyed by the lack of elevator etiquette here in NYC.  Manhattan wouldn’t be the great city it is without elevators, and unfortunately it seems like some people are trying to undermine it’s status by screwing with people who live in buildings that “require” elevators.  Now I’m not necessarily complaining.  This building could be a walk-up.  No, actually, I am complaining, but it’s more because I feel entitled to the convenience of an elevator.  If you live in a building with an elevator, the elevator should come quickly, shouldn’t stop frequently, and should take you to your destination frequently.  Which the elevator in my building would do if it weren’t for the people who work and visit my building.

Let me explain.  I live in what seems to be the only administrative building that the entire medical school owns.  The bottom four floors are offices and the top sixteen? floors are dorm rooms.  People coming to conduct business often take the elevator up a floor or two.  This scenario plays out at least once a week.

Me: Hey, what floor?

Random Person:  Could you press two?

Me: Two?

Random Person:  Yeah two

[Awkward silence because a lazy fat ass is in the elevator]

I’m tired of people co-opting 2 minutes of my time (time that I am paying thousands of dollars per year to use studying apparently) by taking an elevator up one floor.  It’s not okay, it is in fact quite rude.  You know what’s worse though?  Taking the elevator down a floor

Now it makes sense that if someone has a physical disability that limits their mobility, they have all of the license they want to take the elevator up or down one floor.  This post doesn’t apply to folks who are wheelchair bound, walking with crutches, pregnant, morbidly obese, or who have arthritis.  It does however apply to those who are plenty healthy and just don’t care about our time.  Don’t take the elevator unless you have to go AT LEAST four floors, and you need to do it quickly.  Go the route that takes less time, because when you do that, you make it faster for everybody.

You see, I don’t take the elevator unless I need to get to my room in a hurry, or down to the ground floor in a hurry.  So it’s aggravating when I see someone taking the elevator from floor 3 to floor 2.  It’s not okay.  Let me say that in unequivocal terms: It is not acceptable - it makes me want to misdiagnose you with something requiring painful biopsies.  I’m just joking about the misdiagnosis/biopsies part. I’m not joking about how unacceptable it is.  I could accept it if offices were on floors 10-15.  But they aren’t.  So don’t act as if they are.  Some people live here.  Please respect that.  I don’t play my music as loudly as possible at 2:30pm, even though I technically could.  I respect the fact that you work there.  Respect my home, please.

Finally, constipation is awful.  I sympathize with your struggle if you are having trouble dropping the kids off at the pool.  What many people don’t understand is that you are hungry, and you have to go really bad at the same time and it only tends to compound both problems.  In addition to the indecision, you are in pain - your abdomen both full and irritated takes to cramping often to “solve” the problem.  If only it just decided to move the contents of the bowels along everything would be just fine, wouldn’t it now.  Almost universally, someone tells a constipated person to eat something that “gets things moving”.   Almost universally this fails to work, and does in fact compound the constipation.  Eating when you are constipated is like drinking alcohol when you’ve taken sedatives, to wake up - it doesn’t work, it makes the situation worse.  So don’t eat a ton of food - nuts, cheese, dried fruit - it’s only going to slow your progress.  Be patient, breathe deeply, relax, stretch.  Move around vigorously.  Stop taking muscle relaxants and other CNS depressants.  Stay near a toilet.  It will work out.

I just had to get that off of my chest

Three Vices…well two actually

I absolutely adore whiskey and I love wine; to make things worse, I wish I smoked cigarettes.  I’ll start with wine.  It goes down so smooth, it is so pleasing, I’m relaxed when I have a glass of wine in my hand.  It looks so suave, classy.  It feels great to pop a cork, it’s so nice to pour wine.  I like the hand motion – tip, gradually raise, twirl at the end to trap that last little drop on the rim.  It’s flavor takes some getting used to – and I never quite understood the traditional nomenclature, and to issue a disclaimer, I still don’t.  But there is something nice about knowing that I may be doing something good for my short and long term health.
Then there is the beauty of a wine glass.  Thin stemmed, with a fat top, almost exactly what a woman should look like.  Well, maybe not quite.  The satisfying swirl of wine, little contrails of wine streaming down the side, thick with their effects. To swirl your wine in its’ glass is an exercise in self-satisfied sophisticated hand-eye coordination.  The satisfaction of finishing a glass, a carafe, a bottle is palpable – you share and experience wine with family.  The sweet simplicity of making it is undeniable as well.  Wine is such a beautiful vice.

Where wine is a beautiful vice, smoking defies my attempts to invent a descriptive analogy.  I do not smoke.  It is a disgusting habit and it leaves those who indulge in a dramatically unhealthy position.  In addition it is costly.  It smells awful.  Tar-stained teeth are a problem.  Fingers and clothes absorb the scent and hold onto it for a long time, defying attempts to deodorize them.

Then there are the health effects.  Smoking a cigarette is like rubbing your blood vessels with sandpaper.  Every single time you do it.  Your stressed vasculature, attempting to heal gets inflamed and ends up being injured, leading your immune system to infiltrate the blood vessels.  Dying tissue in your arteries and veins becomes calcified.  The story in your lungs and airway is no different; there, cells on the surface whose job is to keep the lungs sterile change shape to avoid dying.  This shape change is responsible for the cells no longer sweeping mucus and particles out of your lungs.  This is what is responsible for the hacking cough that smokers often have.
For all the negatives (maybe smoking is like sleeping with a beautiful woman with STDs?) smoking does look sexy.  The sound of a burning cigarette, as someone inhales deeply.  The social opportunities it affords.  The look of someone who just lit up, relaxed, breathing deeply.  The time spent outdoors alone, or in a group. As a baby, everything you saw went into your mouth – your hands were as much a tool to crawl as they were to explore orally, this primitive urge is satisfied somewhat with smoking a cigarette.  My grandmother smokes.  My aunt smokes.  Matches are fun to light.  Lighters are interesting to operate.  Smoking seems like such a nice way to spend some time to yourself.
Don’t be fooled.  Smoking is deadly, apparently men and women die approximately 5 years earlier due to smoking.  If only 1% fewer people smoked, some estimate our national health-care expenditure would drop by 30 billion dollars.  That is a considerable amount of money.  Lung cancer, asthma, arthritis, bronchitis, and cardiovascular disease are some of the consequences of the “sexy” habit.  People become addicted quickly, it has been said nicotine is more addictive than heroin and methamphetamines.  At one point almost 50% of men in America smoked, a figure that has dropped to 30% with the advent of anti-smoking campaigns…and lung cancer.

Smoking is deadly and it kills people slowly.  When I was a firefighter, the people that I saw that were the sickest in their older years were smokers.  Women who smoked were fat, with unsightly cellulite, and varicose veins.  Men were typically sickly, weak and tired looking.  They all had nasty coughs and were typically gasping for breath with simple expenditure in energy – getting up to get the door was enough to cause thick, wet wheezing.  Standing up to get on the stretcher could (and often did) precipitate full respiratory arrest.  These people were slowly drowning – miles away from water – in their own bodies, yet some of their greatest urges were to light another cigarette.  They seemed so betrayed by themselves, bewildered and confused.
Whiskey meanwhile, speaking of bewildered and confused, is in a world apart from both wine and cigarettes.  Truth be told, the first time I drank whiskey I hated it.  It tasted disgusting and I was in absolutely no mood to try any more.  It gave me a splitting headache and for a long time I sincerely disliked the taste.  What I needed was just MORE whiskey.  A few months ago, I went to a friends’ apartment and she was pouring shots of Johnny Walker Black.  In an attempt to fit in, I threw them back.  I had several shots – and was quickly drunk – but found that with the later shots, I enjoyed them greatly.  Whiskey still wasn’t smooth.  It still has a certain harshness to it.  Whiskey is an unforgiving drink.  I once again don’t know all of the nomenclature – blended, single-malt, etc means little to me – but I do know what I like.  Johnny Walker, Maker’s Mark, Crown, Glenfiddich, Obahn.  I enjoy the instant feeling that Whiskey gives me.  I’m drunk – almost instantly, as I sip it I KNOW that I’m drinking.  It’s as if I have a drinking work ethic, which frankly is just not true.
I drink little.  I like my wine, I like my beer.  But if it’s going to be hard alcohol, I tend to try to choose the liquor that carries the most bang for the buck.  Whiskey carries a lotta bang.  It’s like a shotgun with overpacked shells vs. a .22 pistol.  It’s going to do its’ damage.  It’s going to carry a certain harsh reality with it.  It’s like a tattoo or a piercing – it hurts.  There is pride in dealing with the pain…but there is also a certain pleasure that one can derive.  Whiskey.  Cigarettes.  Wine.  Worldly nouns that carry a heavy torch…I sorta like fires too…

Unintentional Hiatus…or I date a mountain goat who is into otter porn

What do you wanna bet my page view count for this post skyrockets…Otter porn…well anything on the internet sprinkled with the p-word is sure to get more views than it needs to.  What exactly is this post about?  Well, I haven’t posted in a while, I took a little hiatus - sorta unintentionally.  I’ve got a few minutes - about five to be exact to post a small update to my life over the last two weeks.   I’ve been thinking a lot, working hard, and I’ve seen some interesting things - want an idea what? google things like Common Variable immunodeficiency, prolapsed uterus, prolapsed rectum, and gram-positive bacteria.  I’m wading through immunology, pharmacology, pathology, and microbiology, and I’m loving it.  I think immunobiology may be a definite area of research for me.  I feel like there is much more to know, but there are a lot of things that are known.  There are some very interesting subcategorical areas that we can look into and well…yeah.  And why did I title my post I date a mountain goat who is…”?  Well, the last time I visited my girlfriend we clearly did a DEATH hike and she was just bouncing up the fucking mountain like a happy ass goat.  Oh and she sent me pictures of an otter - when I expected them to be of her smiling face…oh well…more posts coming as soon as I get home - I’m getting kicked out of the coffee shop now…

for y’all in NYC visit GramStand on Ave A btw. 13th and 14th sts. - East side of the street mid-block…you’ll love it!!

Metrosexuality is the newest Bullshit

Shoes are hot.  Actually, shoes are dope.  I enjoy shoes. I enjoy ties, no, I LOVE ties.  I also enjoy shopping for clothes – it actually doesn’t really matter who for.  I can honestly enjoy shopping for women’s clothes just as much as mens.  Now I’m not going wear womens clothes, but I think they are cool to look at.  I enjoy the idea of putting together an outfit.  What’s funny is I feel like it’s probably easier to put together an outfit for a woman than it is to put one together for a man.  Despite my “non-thinking” pattern of dress, I’m extremely picky about what I wear.  Just ask my girlfriend – when I bought my suit for my medical school interview, it took me two hours…to pick my tie.
I have some pictures on my computer from when I tried to do my girlfriend’s makeup.  I was feeling creative, and it was fun.  I sorta wish I was able to “do” makeup well.  Makeup and hair are factors that can really change the way a woman looks.  It would be cool to be able to play with those variables, with some degree of sophistication.  So, here I am, saying in a blog post that I’d love to pick outfits, go clothes shopping, and do women’s hair and makeup.  Let me just add fuel to the fire, I’d love to actually be able to design clothes, and possibly even learn how to knit,  I think interior design is pretty rad, and I love to cook.  Now if I was to ask most people to guess my sexual orientation a few years back, many would say “well maybe he’s gay.”  Some people still would say that.  They’d be wrong…
I’m straight.  Some would say “Oh!! You’re metrosexual!” And here we get to the actual point of this post.  That classification is bullshit.  Flat out I think it’s demeaning and one more tool used to stereotype men.  Used to limit men.  Used to limit people.  Years ago a girl who wanted to work in construction, play sports, be a fireman, or fight in the military was looked at as if she was something other than straight – she was looked at like she was a lesbian.  Maybe she was, but the reality is, our society is in the habit of correlating interests to sexual orientation.  Or interests to ethnic background.  Or interests to political affiliation and alignment.  But that is why we have so many of the problems that we have in our society.  Metrosexuality is a garbage term that only serves to divide people, not to actually describe them.  It doesn’t empower anyone, all it serves to do is reinforce separations and preconceived notions of what it is to be a man in our day and age.  By naming a person as different, you call attention to the things that make them different.
It’s worth noting, because this illuminates another linguistic pet peeve of mine.  In newspapers, whenever an ethnic community is described, African-american, Caucasian, or Asian American you find the newspaper likes to describe people as “blacks”, “whites” or “Asians”.  Now, I’m not sure about the grammatical rules governing these adjectives, but I thought adjectives were always accompanied by nouns, in this case “people” would be the correct one to yoke to the adjective describing people.  But rarely does this pairing occur, instead the adjectives are used as nouns.  This may seem like a technicality, but it reinforces what realistically amount to trivial differences between ethnic groups.  We are diverse, but not nearly as diverse as we might think.  When you start to think of African people as “blacks” and you are a “white” or an “Asian” you start to see them as fundamentally different.  But that’s not really true.
This is my problem with adjectives that are used like nouns; terms such as metrosexual, blacks, whites, environmentalists, businessmen, republicans, lawyers, and doctors.  The terms obscure the substance behind the description that they offer.  They paint the world in colors that to be honest don’t exist.  They paint the world as if it was constructed of a myriad of dimensions that honestly just don’t exist.  They put forward an illusion that is separatist and divisive instead of unifying and collaborative.  Environmentalists and businessmen are both people and they both are pursuing fulfillment – we tend to align with one side and denigrate the other side, using their description as a flag to war against.  But the reality is, they are people first – with different sets of values, perspectives, and beliefs.  When you emphasize a person’s humanity you can begin to exercise a certain enthusiasm and optimism towards them.  You begin to deal with them as a person and not as an entity.  It is easier to be gracious to a person than an organization.

Trader Joes Something Has Got To Give

TJ… I’ll never forget the first time I saw you – I was sixteen and you were on Queen Anne, sitting there unobtrusively, you seemed understated even though you had a strange penchant for tropical fonts.  The most memorable thing about you at the time was how cheap you seemed, and how the only thing I could ever really find was chips and salsa.  But were they delicious.  The thing is, I needed to learn who the inner you really was.  I needed to learn about your cereal, your produce, your soy milk, meats, cheeses, and other produce.  I needed to visit your freezer case and see who you were.  I quickly fell in love with you – and although I didn’t see you as often as I should have, I truly did love you.
Then I moved to New York.  I liked to go to downtown to see you as much as possible but I realized something.  You didn’t have the time of day for me anymore.  What used to be a five minute wait for a cashier turned into a 20 minute lap around the store.  What was a carefree formality turned into an exercise in paranoia and territoriality – your popularity seemed to catalyze a certain disrespect for social norms such as personal space and ethical behavior while waiting in queues.  I’ve never been cut in line twice in the same line…
We have reached a point in our relationship TJ where something has got to give.  Either you dedicate some more time to me, or I’m going to start seeing other stores.  Stores like Fairway.  Fairway is closer to me, nearly as cheap, and has a much larger selection.  TJ’s I love you – it’s just I’m not in love with you.  I need more, either locations, or cashiers, or more hours.  I can’t spend 20 minutes in line with you, only to be treated with complete indifference once I get to the cashier…  It’s not fair to me and it isn’t fair to you…I mean, I get the feeling you think it’s all about the prices, and I have to say I LOVE your prices.  I just don’t love waiting for the better part of an hour in an “express” line.  Maybe I’m trying to see you at the wrong times.  Maybe I’m being too demanding. .  I mean, I’m willing to go out to Brooklyn every week for you.   Maybe you could open a sister store in Manhattan?  I really do love you – even that wacky font you seem to have.

Doma: A Little Slice of the Seattle Coffee Shop Experience in the West Village

Since coming to New York last year, I’ve been searching for a coffeeshop that I could go to and sit down in.  One where it wasn’t too crowded, one that has a good offering of coffee, small food items, wine, and soft drinks.  Outlets for plugging in your computer, and good lighting.  Well, Doma is all of these except for it tends toward the more crowded on weekends – and doesn’t have plug-ins on weekends until after 5pm.  Doma is in fact more than just this.  The tiny space with maybe 500 sq. ft of space somehow seems swanky and homey at the same time.  Funky, gossipy lesbian Czech women working, wine, bluefin pate salad ($8), glorified KoolAid (Doma Refresher, $2.75), wood floors, a hodgepodge of mismatched tables and chairs, a pitiful magazine selection, huge bay windows, hanging lights, two lumbering ceiling fans, and a big brick wall painted white all make the décor seem like hanging out in the den with your cousins.
There is a de facto dress code of designed T-shirts or collared shirts with jeans or linen slacks and casual sneakers for guys.  Ladies should wear a combination of yoga inspired pants with some type of shirt-dress and either sandals, genuine workout sneakers or low-key boots.  The idea is laid back, yet sexy as hell.  Ladies, hair should be down and in as “natural” a style as your particular hair type will allow.  Afros are highly desirable even if it isn’t your natural hair style.  Gentlemen should arrive clean shaven or covered in a gentle layer of scruff. Bring your old books, because they have a trendy “Books for Darfur” drive, where people throw away their literary scraps at Sudanese children so that they feel good about themselves…
Besides the gentle patina of pretense inherent in the crowd that frequents Doma (which is perfect for me), the actual place itself is a gem.  It’s situated on an off street, about two or three blocks south of a subway station – it is in fact extremely easily accessible, with the 1,2,3, F, A, B, C trains within five blocks of its’ locations.  All kidding aside, Doma is easy to find, the food and drinks are pretty tasty (the juices can be a little expensive, but the coffee is okay), there’s tons of space and the people tend to be nice to look at…

Doma
Open 0745 to 0000 every day
212.929.4339
17 Perry St.
New York

A Damp, Sweaty, Humid Piece of Heaven in Manhattan

It’s a little rough around the edges.  The music isn’t that great, a warbling Chinese rendition of what I can only describe as Tears of A Clown on crack.  Melamine paneled plywood walls are adorned with small clocks with grapes on them and charts of meridians that course through one’s feet, legs, torso, hands, arms, chest, back, neck, face, and ears.  The shelves are stocked with odd and mysterious effects such as salt, honey, small candles, and four miniature zucchini lined up in a row on top of a tiny, cheap microwave sitting atop a cheap mini-fridge.  Coursing from the fridge is a small cord that joins a heap of other cords at an outlet that realistically probably has too many things plugged in.  A tiny desk, surrounded by peeling wallpaper – it has flowers on the ends of vines (it also has a homey feel, reminding me of the sheets I slept on through most of my childhood which is apparently summed up by the number 1846) – is attended by a man who is keeping the records in a spiral bound notebook with a pencil.  The various women performing the massages are speaking in Chinese to one another, but over them you can hear constant, impassioned groans, grunts and heavy breaths, simultaneously strained and relieved…someone next to me is having some serious work done – I’m merely sitting at this point when just as a woman with large biceps and obviously strong hands comes out I hear a lady exclaim “oh Jesus”…almost immediately I think “now that’s the massage I need.”  In my overeagerness (I walked two miles across town to get here) I stand up before the woman is ready to provide my mashup.  Originally I was planning on a 30 minute backrub and I instead opt for a 45 minute backrub.  The woman agrees and leaves me to my own devices in the room to undress.  I’m a bit confused as to “how low I should go” wondering if I should take off my underwear or not when she comes back in and hastily commands me with a certain confidence to take off my shirt and socks.  I quickly comply, and she places the towel over me – my virgin experience in this rubshack and I’m quickly glad that there will be no chance for any “wikki-wikki” as my friend Izabella calls it.  She is the entire reason I’m even there to be honest, I before had avoided these kinds of places like the plague, always worried about being inadvertently caught in some type of prostitution sting just as I’m getting undressed.  The lady spreads the towel over my back and starts mashing on my back through the towel… Suddenly the music changed – instead of relatively meaningless Chinese pop music, suddenly Bob Dylan was singing Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (at least in my head).
Yes, the combination of the warm towel, and the strong hands was enough to melt me in a way I thought only illegal pharmaceuticals could…This is a feeling akin to what I imagine Demerol would induce.  So as the oddly strong Chinese woman started to pull on my back, and massage knots out, with the towel over me, I started to drift into a sort of musculoskeletal dream world.  Then she took the towel off, and quickly spritzed an alcohol and oil gel mixture on my back – smoothed it over quickly, and began to work.  Soon, the impassioned grunts, moans, and deep breathing through pursed lips that I heard from others was all that I was capable of contributing to the room.  What I was truly impressed by was how she managed to use her hands, wrists, forearms, elbows, and even her shoulder to rub my back and neck.  At times it was all too intense for me to deal with – shocks of pain searing through my back and neck up to my mouth where it was translated into loud yelps.  Directly after one of these outbursts, she would lean over and coo into my ear with a gentle, yet endearing accents “IS okay? Just relax?”  It worked every time…I felt like I was drifting into a state where I had lost complete consciousness of my body – I was for once alone with my thoughts and had absolutely no idea what was happening to my body…it was heaven…
One thing I noticed thought during the massage – was that my hamstrings were amazingly tight – and the more she rubbed my legs, the more my lower back relaxed – the less pressure I felt on my spine.  I had a physical therapist once tell me that my hamstrings and gluteal muscles were tight, and that it was the source of much of my back and hip pain…A “butt-clencher” is how she termed it.  So yes, letting her rip into my muscles down there was well worth the five minutes – and it didn’t tickle or hurt nearly as much as I thought it might.  When I go back, I will likely ask her to focus on that region – helping me to relax those muscles, and alleviating pain in the region and relaxing the musculature all the way around my spine.
When my time was up I sat up slowly, dizzy and feeling like I’d lost a ton of weight.  Another thing I didn’t expect – I was sore.  I’ve been told many times that I would be sore after a massage and that I would need to drink a ton of water.  It never really happened unless the massage “hurt” me.  This time, I was not only feeling less tense after the massage was over, but I was also feeling like I had just played a full game of rugby.  The massage was intense, and I was definitely feeling worked out.  I paid the woman for the 45 minute experience, and realized that with a seven dollar tip included it was $45 dollars total.
Amazing…
Qui-Gon Something Something Chinese Massage
Open from 1100 to 2300 every day
W57th St.  btw. 9th and 10th North side of the street
New York

$26 for a 30 min massage

$38 for a 45 min massage

$48 for 60 min

J-Code #1

Okay, so my girlfriend is the true master of spoonerisms.  I love them, they are always amusing to me, sometimes I have to try to think about what she’s saying, other times I just understand (true testament to the human brains’ ability to decipher language, both spoken and written) what she’s saying.  In an attempt to compile a comprehensive list of her musings, inspired by her friend Tara, here is a new section to Terroncito’s Thoughts - mostly because me and her have very similar thoughts - or at least are very aware of each other’s thoughts…Readers, I introduce to you, the J-Code…

“Merix” = Remix

“Way to twist the dagger in the sword”  = Way to twist the knife.  OR Way to add insult to injury

“Stummy” = Stomach / Tummy

“I get the feeling poor Kaul isn’t too pleased with his computer”

J-Co speaking about the status message of D. Kaul - “eat shit SONY VAIO…

“Click it double twice.”  = Double click.

Dehumanization and the Internet

Perhaps it’s a feature of society at large today, perhaps a feature of American media and its’ sensationalist drive.  Maybe its’ because our popular entertainment sources are living such a pervasive lie.  Maybe its’ because our popular media outlets are already doing it themselves. Maybe its’ a lack of ability to socialize that leads people to feel disconnected, and in turn dead.  Maybe its’ because so many people have such stressful, nightmarish lives that they want something to make them feel like they are on top.  Maybe its’ the ability to be a voyeur. Maybe its’ simple curiosity.

Maybe its’ disbelief that this is real life.  I definitely didn’t think I was going to see what I saw.  What am I speaking of?  Well, the internet phenomena that is crazy, extreme videos and pictures.  I mistakenly looked at a tubgirl/goatse picture mash – and I immediately regretted it.  What would prompt people to a) sexualize the swallowing of diarrhea and b) take pictures?  I had no idea what I was getting myself into that evening.  Fresh out of a discussion about how many deceased people I’ve seen in a variety of fairly disgusting conditions, decomposed, crushed, bloodied, shot, stabbed, broken, arthritic, etc., I stumbled across these two attempts at well, pornography, and I was flat out shocked.

Years ago, Faces of Death was a hit VHS tape, with millions of “satisfied” viewers.  These extreme, uncensored videos caught the eyes of mostly teenage boys who were curious about what life REALLY had to offer.  Well at least the worst of it that is.  But I’m left wondering about those boys.  What does it mean that they wanted to see such dehumanizing things?  Why witness and repeatedly relive such horrific, gory sights?  Why is there that curiosity?

My inadvertent curiosity led me to return to rotten.com, which is and has been a repository of all things disgusting.  I’ll never forget when my job actually exposed me to the first sight that looked like it was out of rotten.com…I was seventeen.  On a ride-along, we found a man who had probably been deceased for about two weeks.  Inside his bed.  In the summer.  Needless to say, when I found him I touched the blanket (my first huge mistake) and pressed, thinking maybe I’d wake this man up.  Unfortunately, he didn’t wake up…his gas bloated body…well, to say it directly, “popped”.  I think that was when I realized that the major difficulty in emergency medicine wasn’t the sights…it was going to be the smells.

But I diverge.  I looked at rotten.com for a few minutes, I saw a picture of a badly burned corpse.  I saw a picture of man who had jumped out of a building and landed on a car.  I saw an advertisement for an extreme video webiste.  Ashamed I am to say…I clicked.  Soon enough, I was seeing a man straddling his grossly obese wife, stabbing her calmly while she screamed for help.  Strangers were watching in disbelief, trying to remove him from the woman by sort of half-heartedly kicking the man in the shoulder.  The next video was a surveillance camera video of a man shooting a bully five times.  The bully probably died.  He definitely lost consciousness.  Soon there was the video of two teenagers fighting.  The woman who “stomped” a cat with her stilleto heels.  The drug dealer shooting a cop, only to be shot by other cops.  The police suspect who shot himself in the head in an interrogation cell (the kind I’ve been in millions of times when arrestees “developed” medical conditions).  The disgraced politician who shot himself in the mouth during a press conference.  The man who ran up and murdered his wife while she was being interviewed for an investigative journalism show.  He shot her at least seven times at point blank range.  Video of the man jumping off of the building.  Video of the mortally wounded firefighter stumbling for help immediately after a toluene tank exploded in front of him.  Video of the rally cars slamming into spectators, littering their bodies around the road.  Video of what appeared to be riot police shooting a man with a shotgun in the chest, him lying prone on the street, bleeding profusely, clutching his chest, the life literally flooding out of him.

Somehow I managed to stop.  And as self-serving as this sounds, it took strength to stop watching.  It immediately made me wonder why it was so easy and intriguing to watch these videos.  To experience the last moments of at least a dozen people.  Completely unable to help them, calmly watching.  Why?  That question has been bugging me for sometime now.  I think its’ multifactorial to be honest.  Our society prizes the next biggest thing.  The craziest thing.  Hence television shows like Fear Factor, The Real World, Americas Next Top Model.  Hence “viral videos” like “Two Chicks One Cup” and “Chocolate Rain”.  But it’s more than just excitement – it’s an indicator of how little our society values life.  Three police officers were just acquitted of all charges in the slaying of Sean Bell, a man who, while admittedly drunk and arguing at a seedy stripclub in the middle of Queens, was shot numerous times.  One of the plainclothes detectives discharged his weapon 31 times.  One man who managed to live survived being shot nineteen times.  In all, a fusillade of 50 bullets sailed through the car, some managing to ricochet into nearby homes and, a train stop that I take everytime I travel to or from the airport.  They were charged with misdemeanors of reckless endangerment and they were even acquitted of THOSE charges.

So in my mind, it’s official, we don’t value life properly.  We feel that it’s okay to kill at will.  We bomb countries, we shoot people we are frightened of, we make a quick buck off of incredibly degrading videos, horrific tragedies that serve to get people looking.  It’s almost as if our society is mentally dead, and the only way we feel truly alive is by confronting our mortality.  So one person’s tragedy translates into a sensational news story and prime time advertisements.  How have we gotten so far away from our own humanity?  Why is murder something that we tolerate?  Why do we tolerate guns being used against people?  I know I probably sound like a leftist/conservative whack job – but really, why is it that when someone shoots another person, we allow that person to continue to live in society?  Why isn’t life fair?  Why don’t we hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard?

Eco-Chimneys, Waste Towers, Algae, Moss and Bioremediation

We do a lot of things wrong in this world.  I’m flying to the West coast right now, and a few minutes ago the pilot told us we would burn 5,000 gallons of fuel in the process.  It makes me feel sorta bad because in all reality this is a pleasure trip that is only making our problems with greenhouse gases worse.  But I digress.  There are concepts floating around the sustainable architecture world that can help us do something right our “gas” problem.  Like “Beano for your Pinto”, there are ways of capturing the carbon dioxide that we pump into the air, and absorbing it in order to reduce our carbon problems.  Eco-chimneys were one concept that I saw, and they looked extremely interesting.  The basic premise is that powerful fans pull air from the lowest part of the road where the majority of cars aim their exhaust.  Suctioning this layer of air off and compressing it, they then deliver it to a chimney of sorts that is populated by a ton of plant life.  There are hanging vines that physically absorb a large quantity of the heat, reduced the thermal pollution produced by the exhaust, and then there are membranes filled with algae that take light and carbon dioxide and other noxious fumes and use them to make whatever it is that algae make.  What comes out of the chimney is drastically better for the environment than what comes out of a multitude of car tailpipes.  At least that’s the premise.

Algae are powerful little suckers, they can be genetically modified to overproduce something, they are easy to grow (water + sun + almost any organic fluid), and they are cheap.  In our case the thing they may one day be tapped to overproduce is biodiesel.  The organic fluid may be a slurry of our urban waste – sewage, food scraps, organic material that is biodegradeable may be utilized to make biodiesel.  I think it beats growing corn and fermenting it to make ethanol.  All that’s necessary is a large pond with access to the sun…and algae, and pipes to supply the pond with sewage.  It’s a long way off – scientists haven’t quite attained yields of biodiesel that are commercially viable, but isn’t there some way we can push this kind of thing to the forefront of scientific development?

In all, I think both of these ideas speak heavily for the idea of bioremediation – we need to figure out a way to economically “re-format” our waste streams to be compatible with our environment.  If we can figure out species that like to eat things like plastics and tin foil – or if we can figure out a way to make them more palatable to bacteria and what not, we can ultimately save ourselves acres of landfill space, and tons of economic destruction and harm.  If we can get the organisms to recycle for us – a sort of “cold fusion recycling” we can continue on our stream of consumerism and overpackaged goods, while hopefully altering the consequences for our environment, and ultimately our health.

It’s starting to look like living near power lines cause cancer, vaccinations might prove harmful in ways we never knew they could, exhaust fumes and particulates cause asthma, noise and lights at night in our cities disrupt our sleep cycles, pig brain mists can cause our immune system to attack our brains, our farmed meat isn’t as healthy as wild meat, lack of exercise due to sitting for hours on end, smoking causes cancer, we have trace amounts of an incredible number of pharmaceutical products in our drinking water that may play havoc with our bodies, and watching too much television makes us stupid.  Our environment, especially in urban areas is killing us – and not so slowly.  Many of these problems have very pragmatic solutions that just take initiative, and bioremediation of our most pressing problems holds an incredible amount of promise as a pragmatic and economically sensible solution to the environmental and climate problems looming on the horizon.