Alot of of the people in the small Missouri town of Ferguson want justice for Michael Brown, the 18 year old man that was shot and killed by a police officer. This rush to judgement is exactly what is wrong with the justice system.
There is a big difference between justice and the truth. Once the grand jury winds down sometime over the next weeks, we, as the public, will be privvy to the facts and crime scene evidence presented by police. It will be with this evidence and facts that we will be able to find out exactly what happened that tragic day.
I trust in the justice system because it works. In this case if it comes out that the police officer did indeed gun the teen down in cold blood, then he should be indicted and prosecuted.
However, I believe that even if the evidence shows that it was a good shooting, common police terminology for justifiable use of force, then I fully expect the grand jury to indict the officer only to calm the tension in the community. Indiciting the officer to calm the people down, fully confident he will be exhonerated at trial, could be walking a slippery slope.
If we indict police officers just to calm down protests then we are, in essence, negotiating with terrorists. They are using peaceful, yet sometimes violent protests, to directly impact criminal proceedings to their benefit or satisfaction.
If we start here, where will it end? Will we start indicting everyone that falls under protest? Of course not. I know more than 50% of Americans protest and complain against President Obama’s misuse of Executive Powers. There is no indictment there. Millions around the world protest and complain against the Greek economic collpase caused by the misappropriation of funds by the European Union. Still no indictment there.
No, I think this will only stop once there has been war declared on the American people by its own government. This war isn’t white and black. It isn’t even Muslim and Christian. It is a war between the haves and the have nots. Something is coming and it is coming soon. This is just the beginning.
Beyond 2012
I ran across another cool video in the web and wanted to share it, because I think it will give a new perspective to concentrate on the state of the planet from a politicosocial standpoint instead of focusing on a natural reason of devastation. Enjoy.
Gun Laws On The Table?
The violence we see spreading from shopping malls in Oregon, to movie theaters in Colorado, to college campuses in Virginia, to elementary schools in Connecticut, is being spawned by the toxic view of a violent popular culture, a growing mental health crisis and the proliferation of combat-style weapons.
There are alot of us that are for stricter gun controls but also know we have a second amendment right to bear arms that we cannot afford to give away, so where do we go from here. Some believe we should ban assault weapons. Some think a limit on the number of rounds people can purchase.
This morning I put myself in the shoes of a Congressman and thought to myself, if I had the power to change things, what policies would instill into a bill. What I came up with was that if even just the principle had a concealed weapon, then things would have ended better.
After Columbine, we installed better security measures. We taught teachers how to identify situations and keep students safe. Teachers had to learn to counsel student victims of bullying to prevent volatile situations and how to handle naturally occuring disasters. Now, in the wake of a tragedy we have never seen before, we should train teachers in another important aspect of a quickly failing society.
To shoot to kill. Along with a college degree and a clean criminal record, teachers should have a CHL(Concealed Handgun License) and a handgun locked in a safe in their desks I think violence in schools would cease.
Sure, violence will always arise in places because of the dramatization of violence and guns in music, movies, and art, but Lanza and the Trench Coat Mafia, would have thought better of walking into a school to massacre children when 100 school staff is packing protection.
When it comes to mental health issues in people, this is complicated, we’ve got to find a way to create a society in which those closest to people in trouble, mentally, acknowledge that and help them secure assistance.
As for violence in the entertainment and video game industry, I think we really do have to reopen the conversation and go back and ask ourselves, is there more we can do?
The Future Is Here
Possibilities abound in the future for integrating our digital, social lives into appliances and places we have never seen. Provided Corning Inc. can ultimately get their Gorilla Glass to do what I think they want it to do. Super strong, paper thin, seamless, and fully application enabled Gorilla Glass is the wave of the future. Below is a video I stumbled upon.
Can this be possible? Yes, but it would require the glass be completed then all the app developers wouldn’t be able to wait to start programming apps for it. Goodbye Android. Goodbye iPhone. Hello Black and Decker Microwave.
How Apes Became Human Part 2: Bone Structure
As I discussed in part one, bipedalism, the ability to walk upright on two legs, was the first genetic transition that occured in the human-ape split timeline.
Indeed our ancestors’ anatomy underwent all sorts of basic changes to accomodate this new upright way of walking. Many of these changes that occured would have had to help the body stay balanced and comfortable by countering and stabilizing the weight bearing loads and keeping the upper body balanced above the feet. To walk upright in a habitual way, you have to do it in a synchronous manner. If your joints, muscles, and ligaments are not aligned properly it leads to injuries, which would have led the earliest ancestors to become prey, not predator.
The most crucial evolutionary changes in the bone structure were those in the torso, chest and spine. The distance between the chest and the pelvis is larger in humans than in apes, allowing the spine to curve pushing the upper body centered above the pelvis bones for balance. The pelvis grew wider and humans developed a hip joint and other ligaments that stabalize the pelvis, thats why humans do not sway side to side when they walk, apes do.
Even more changes took place in the legs. On the thighbone, the bent part at the top is broader in humans than in apes, which increases balance. The human knee, too, is specialized for upright movement. To compensate for the thighbones being angled, there’s a groove at the end of the femur to prevent the kneecap from sliding off the joint. An ape doesn’t have this groove due to the lack of angulation between the knee and the pelvis. This change meant you were biped.
Lastly, there is the foot. What’s so important here is the height difference in the arch of the foot. The arch is larger and higher on humans than on apes. The arch is a great shock absorber. To create such an arch the ape’s opposable big toe became aligned with the others, and the muscles and ligaments used to grasp trees repositioned under the foot.
Many other changes took place over millions of years and thousands of generations. In the next part I will discuss the evolutionary transits that occured on the exterior.
Dark Side
Drip,
Watch it drip,
Dripping down,
Scarlet rivers,
Crimson ribbons,
Cardinal carpets,
Sin,
To lay upon reveal,
To curl up into,
While the rivulets congeal,
Cover me in candy-apple love,
Drench me in it,
Fold me up with it,
Cut me up and make me one with it,
Let me taste it,
Sticky copper-flavored sweetness,
One last taste of heaven,
As I descend into deepness,
Delivered,
Post dated return,
Never to seek again,
Damnit,
Fuck it, I cut too deep again.
How Apes Became Humans Part 1: Bipedalism
For nearly 300 years, paleontologists have suspected that bipedalism, the ability to walk on two legs, was the first evolutionary transition that split the human genetic line from that of the apes, and skeletal remains from those such as Java Man and Lucy, have supported this claim.
I want to discuss and pin down the why. What caused apes to evolve the same bipedalism that would start the chain reaction of evolutions that would eventually turn Ardipithicus ramidas kadabba into homo sapiens.
We must first take a look back at the area and time from before the human line first began to evolve.
There is an area in Ethiopa called the middle awash. Today it is nothing more than a hot, harsh, rock desert punctuated by tree-lined rivers and patches of lava dried up by the twice-a-year torrent of rain.
But around 5.5 million years ago, the landscape was very different here. The land was almost a mile higher than it is today due to tectonic shifting. As a result the environment here was cooler and wetter and overgrown with grass, bushes and trees. It was a rainforest inhabited by primitive elephants, giant rats, pigs, monkeys, and horses, along with dozens of other species long since extinct.
It was around this time a new type of primate arose. An animal not so different than it’s knuckle-walking cousins before it including fur, a small brain and , except one thing. It walked on two legs upright instead of scurrying along like a chimp on all fours.
This much we know as scientific fact, but what I am interested in is the harder to figure out, why.
Common accepted knowledge is that Africa began to change around the time that humans first evolved. The changes, becoming drier and hotter, would have shown favor of grasslands over forests, deserts over lakes, and our ancestors began to evolve in order to take advantage of the new conditions.
We learned to walk upright, so goes the theory, to be able to spot predators and prey alike over the tall grasses. Also, an upright position as opposed to a hunched over position, makes for a smaller target for the hot blazing sun and a larger target for cooling breezes.
The only problem I see with that theory is that it is wrong. While walking upright may have begun as behavior, evolution demands an explanation as to why the behavior persisted throughout thousands of generations. Looking at it logically, walking upright just doesn’t make sense. For our earliest ancestors, walking upright on two legs would have been slower than walking on four legs while expending the same amount of energy.
My theory is that bipedalism persisted through generations for one reason. Sex.
Much like other primates will stand on their back legs to display their dominance, our ancestors did the same. Those that stood, walked, hunted, or ran upright the most or most proficiently got more and more sex leading to more and more offspring that were also proficient in waking upright.
If males were out hunting and bringing home the Miocene equivalent of the bacon, then they would need their hands free to carry it. Over time, females would only choose to mate with those males who brought them food. Those were the males who were best adapted at walking upright.
The evolutionary transition of walking upright on two legs from lumbering on four was a genetic reward from mother nature for sex. Just a byproductual transformation from a primate’s basic instinct.
2012 Apocalypse??
December 21, 2012 is near. So is the end of the world. Or is it?
If you believe in the alleged Mayan prophecies, the world is set to end in just nine days. Yes, NINE DAYS. Better wipe out that savings account and do all the living you can before it comes.
You think that sounds crazy? Just do a google search for 2012 Mayan Prophecy. Pages and pages of results. Of people ‘living their last days. Of stories of the end of the world.
Alot of people have misinterpreted what the end of the Mayan calendar means.
Misinformation on the internet and television says that because the Mayan Calendar ends on December 21, 2012 that the world will end also. The truth is that the truth is not quite as interesting.
Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then—just as your calendar begins again on January 1—another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar as well.
Think of it is a clock. You use your clock to count the number of hours in a day, from midnight to midnight. Well, just because your 24 hour cycle is over you don’t buy a new clock to start a new 24 hour period. You use the same clock for the next cycle.
Either way, whether you are spending all of your money and building yourself an ark or stockpiling food and ammo, I’ll see you all for Christmas. Happy holidays.
Elephant Dung Coffee
In the lush northern hills of Thailand, there is a new, yet extravagantly expensive, coffee being brewed using elephants and the dung they excrete.
In this jungle retreat, there is a herd of 20 elephants that is fed the pure cherries from the Arabica variety are mixed with fruit, rice, nuts, and seeds. The cherries are harvested a day later by women of the village, from the dung. After a thorough washing, the beans are extracted and sent to a roaster in
The Black Ivory coffee is hailed as having a sweet, earthy, mellow flavor and being smooth on the palate.
When an elephant eats the beans a chemical reaction in the elephants stomach breaks down the protein in the coffee. The proteins in coffee give it its bitterness, so breaking it down leads to a gourmet coffee that is smooth.
The elephants giant stomach plays another important role in the creation of the coffee’s flavor. Think of the elephant as the animal kingdom’s equivalent of a slow cooker. “It takes between 15-30 hours to digest the beans, which stew together with bananas, sugar cane and other ingredients in the elephant’s vegetarian diet to infuse unique earthy and fruity flavours”, said Blake Dinkin, the 42-year-old Canadian, who has a background in civet coffee.
Dinkin says: “My theory is that a natural fermentation process takes place in the elephant’s gut. That fermentation imparts flavours you wouldn’t get from other
coffees.”
Black Ivory’s maiden batch of 150 pounds has sold out. Dinkin hopes to crank out six times that amount in 2013. For now, only the wealthy or well-travelled have access to Black Ivory Coffee. It was
launched last month at a few luxury hotels in remote corners of the world – first in northern Thailand, then the Maldives and now Abu Dhabi – with the price tag of more than 30 dollars a cup.
Holiday Recipe
As the holidays approach I am reminded of a classical dish that was taught to me in Culinary school so many years ago, however, I wanted to share my improved recipe with you. It is a crowd pleaser and easy to make.
Ingredients
2 12″ pie crusts
2 1/2 cups corn syrup
2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons coffee or chocolate extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
2 cups pecanhalves
Vanilla or pumpkin ice cream, if desired
Directions
1. Heat oven to 425°F. Grease 13×9- inch glass baking dish with shortening or cooking spray. Place 1 of the crusts in dish to fit, don’t worry about it cracking any.
2. In large bowl, stir corn syrup, brown sugar, butter, extracts, cinnamon and eggs with wire whisk for 5 minutes. Stir in chopped pecans. Spoon half of filling into pastry-lined dish.
3. Place other crust over filling, fit to dish, and once again don’t worry about it breaking. Brush top crust with some melted butter, but not too much so as it’s not greasy.
4. Bake 14 to 16 minutes or until browned. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.
5. Carefully spoon remaining filling over baked pastry; arrange pecan halves on top in decorative fashion.
6. Bake 30 minutes longer or until set. Cool 20 minutes on a cooling rack. Serve the warm cobbler with vanilla or pumpkin ice cream or even whipped cream.
This is a unique take on a classic holiday dessert that I promise your friends and family will love.
SnStarr Productions 