Edition #1153

Wednesday.

I am told that my assumption regarding anonymity and the framers of our Constitution was very wrong. Apparently, many of them did publish essays and pamphlets under pseudonyms. So, I will modify my thoughts insofar as today’s technologies push whatever benefits anonymity may offer way past the point where they become destructive to society.

…………And Again…Shit –

The speed of light is one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second…not one hundred eighty-six miles per second, as I mistakenly stated on Monday…nor one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per hour, as I mistakenly stated yesterday. Thank you, Brad, for both corrections, and you are welcome for being given the opportunity to laugh at me.

“I’ve seen proof of where they have a vaccination thing that looks like the size of a bottle of soda and pour it into a little child’s body.” Quote from Donald J. Trump, describing a real vaccine process that definitely, actually, totally happens. Our president…

And while on that subject, it appears that RFK, Jr. has not been moving fast enough to manufacture evidence of some adverse effects of vaccines. Remember that last year, RFK, Jr. had promised a report by last September linking vaccines to autism. Well, that timeframe passed with barely a peep. And after his attempt to change the recommended vaccine protocols for children was successfully challenged in court due to a lack of scientific evidence to support it, Trump just issued a similar order, again lacking any scientific backing, other than Trump’s suggestion above that we pump gallons of poison into our children willy-nilly. A consequence of the success of the last hundred years of medical breakthroughs that have made the diseases that tormented parents throughout human history seem like they never existed, we now forget how valuable these ramparts are. Some among us believe that we can do without them, that somehow the dangers that they have kept at bay are gone forever, or never existed in the first place. Silly species.

There is a category of food ingredients that is known as GRAS, which stands for “generally recognized as safe.” These are things that have been around for so long and ingested so regularly that there is no reason to believe they are a danger. And as such, they are ingredients that have not been rigorously tested as many other things have been. Before you start to freak out, some of the more common examples of GRAS food ingredients are salt, vinegar, baking soda, and vitamin C. But now, the Department of Health and Human Services wants food manufacturers to run by any changes in food ingredients before using them…for some reason. And if I sound skeptical, I am. This is the same HHS folks who do not want to force supplements to be tested for safety and efficacy, yet food ingredients that are considered GRAS have to be scrutinized? I do know the underlying narrative here. The supplement industry has, by and large, been an industry dominated by small players. And for those so inclined, that makes them the underdogs, always fighting off the power of big pharma. Therefore, any attempts to make them prove that their products are effective and safe is merely a means of keeping them down, keeping people less healthy, allowing big pharma to reap the rewards of treating otherwise manageable ailments. But when it comes to big food, changing ingredients must be subject to governmental oversight because, well, big food, right? And maybe there are good reasons for this food ingredient thing, although no specific rationale was apparent in what I read. But the supplement digression, to me at least, is unwarranted and dangerous.

Believe it or not, this Nugget is about fashion. And the underlying narrative seems to support the view of fashion that I have had for a very long time. So here is the story, as I understand it. When back in fashion school in Canada, two students, Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, started a fashion line called Matières Fecales…translation, Fecal Matter. While originally an exercise in making fun of the extremes of fashion, the now Paris-based label is all the rage. Their very extreme designs, which, again, were originally intended to be so out there that fashion designers would kind of take a step back and reevaluate, had quite the opposite effect. And now, all kinds of celebrities, like Lady Gaga, Zendaya, Madonna, Demi Moore, Gabbriette, and Kylie Jenner, were all spotted wearing fecal matter…Um, I mean, Matières Fecales. My point, exactly.

Well, since global warming is just a hoax, and there is no reason for us to be complaining about unseasonably warm weather and draught/floods, and other climate phenomena, there should be no worries about historic low levels of water in critical reservoirs such as Lake Mead and the Colorado River. I mean, who needs water anyway, right? It is all around us, except when it isn’t. But now is not the time to harp on those who cannot see what human activity is doing to the planet. That ship has sailed, unfortunately. We are now in the stage where we must deal with the consequences and not point fingers…even when pointing fingers is the easier and more satisfying thing to do. The reality is that Lake Mead is about five feet away from not being capable of delivering electricity to its customers, and not all that much further from being considered a dead reservoir. And while this was completely foreseeable, it was also not something that could be fixed locally. The issue of allocation of water resources from the Colorado River, however, is something that has been under discussion for decades, as populations grow, demands upon the river grow, and input into the river not only does not grow, but shrinks. It has been obvious for a long time that alternatives were needed, and I am sure some changes have altered the distress at the margins. But at this point, since the parties have not been able to come to terms, it may very well be that the upstream recipients will be the winners and the downstream unrecipients will just lose out. So I am left with one question. Why the fuck have we, in California, not dedicate ourselves to building a vast infrastructure of desalination plants? Yes, it is expensive to build. Yes, it is expensive to operate. Yes, it is environmentally damaging. But running out of water, as was predicted long ago, is also expensive. Funneling all of the water from the Colorado River, as well as other sources, is also environmentally damaging. And with a growing population, or even a population at the existing levels, the choice is more water from somewhere, or killing off some segment of our population. Wait, did I just say that? Am I now Thanos? Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Ok, enough of this depressing shit, right? Let’s talk about something that no one cares about, and while I think it is all very interesting, this Nugget will have zero impact on your life, guaranteed. When one plucks a guitar string, or a violin string, or whatever string, it vibrates to make sound. And the movement of that string in response to your pluck is a wave, going up and down at a certain frequency, right? No! Wrong! In a very counterintuitive manner, the string keeps a very angular shape as that angle travels up and down the string. Check out the video here, even if you don’t listen to it, the videos are kind of cool to watch, assuming you are a nerd like me. If you pluck a string close to one end, that triangular shape maintains itself as it travels back and forth along the string. If plucked in the middle, the top tends to flatten out as the flat part spreads up and down the string. There is discussion about the stress on the string at various points, which explains why it acts the way it acts, and yada, yada. Interesting, and I ate it up, but again, it ain’t going to change my life.

So did I miss anything out there in the world while I was typing away? I don’t think much. A few more primaries, but since Trump has hinted, or at least not ruled out, that he would declare a national emergency to take control of the election process, they really don’t matter much. Stay healthy and be good to each other.

Me.