This is exactly it.
It could have been a respectable position if she had found an alternative ALS charity to promote, or actually articulated a case for why animal testing is not helpful in ALS research, but as it stands her position is simply that animal lives are more valuable than human ones, so fuck it, I'll donate to this other charity I heard about on the Daily Show.
There are valid arguments against animal testing in many situations, but this is just high school posturing.
"People die of diseases, it sucks, we can’t let masses of animals suffer for it," is what people around here consider an articulate viewpoint?
cf. My recent comments about Stereogummers being obsessed with "positivity", no matter how inane, naive, or fundamentally irrational. People on this site will upvote ANYTHING they perceive as remotely heartwarming without taking even one moment for reflection. SG has basically turned into Upworthy -- except Upworthy doesn't do 12 stories a week on Arcade Fire.
I sympathize with the anti-testing viewpoint. I just thought your commentary was vapid and left nothing to engage with. Your ability to develop a laundry list of assumptions about my politics and character based on my criticism of your comment says a lot more about you than it does about me.
Have fun on your high horse.
Yeesh. Between the inane 8th grade koans ("Violence is not the answer, because it should never even be a question"), the comically flippant animals-over-people stance ("People die of diseases, it sucks, we can’t let masses of animals suffer for it"), and the obnoxious pre-emptive "gonna get SO downvoted"... how on earth does this comment have any upvotes at all?
Yes, the American justice system is known worldwide for its leniency toward felons.
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/9400000/Disgusted-Lucille-Eyeroll-Animated-gif-arrested-development-9465744-256-141.gif
Not that it matters, but anyone who imagines John Lennon forgiving this guy obviously doesn't know a lot about John Lennon. Dude could hold a grudge over the tiniest slight.
Sorry for the multiple posts but I just realized that my comments could be construed to imply that your cousin doesn't have good parents, or that your story somehow reflects weakness on her part. That's not what I'm getting at. I hope the point I was trying to make more or less shines through.
That is really great that your cousin found a silver lining to her bad week.
But what if, instead of looking to celebrities to undo the self-image problems they help create in the first place, we fostered a culture that encouraged confidence and character-building in people so it wouldn't be necessary to market anti-hater products to them in the first place?
Swift is a skinny, beautiful woman whose life-sized cardboard cutout stands tall and flawless in the make-up aisle of my local CVS. She's as famous for her lovelife as she is for her music, a fact she happily capitalizes upon in this very song. No one should begrudge her beauty or her talent, but she's exactly the sort of unobtainable image that contributes to a culture of misery among teenage girls in the first place.
I've got a daughter myself. Here's hoping I'm a good enough dad that my daughter is able to calibrate her happiness to internal coordinates, rather than sitting around waiting for a pop star to teach her how to love herself.
It's this completely toxic culture of smarmy "positivity" that we live in. Everything is good, the present is better than the past, nobody can pass judgment, etc.
If it were ACTUALLY about seeking the good in life, I could get down with it. But it's not. It's about a total loss of intellectual or moral courage.
When a piece of work is vapid, childish, focus-grouped into oblivion, you're not allowed to identify it for what it is. You have to get in the conga line and pretend it's fun because nobody likes a spoilsport.
When "indie" bands promote Target, Apple, or any number of companies whose success hinges on slave labor and market manipulation, you're not allowed to say it's crass and careerist. Who are you to judge?
It's completely boring and it cuts all adult conversation off at the knees. I'm a grown up. I don't have to kneel at the alter of the Mickey Mouse Club or share your Upworthy meme. The good stuff is only good if we acknowledge that the shitty stuff exists as well.
This might have been the first album that I really connected with emotionally as a teenager. I had a dubbed tape copy (with Soul Coughing's "Ruby Vroom" on the other side) and carried it in my Walkman absolutely everywhere for the entire 10th grade. Obviously there was a lot of lame adolescent self-fashioning going on ("Just in case any of you were wondering, I'm the weird sad kid!") but my connection to the music was real. "Wandering Star" can still put a lump in my throat.
Thanks for the reminder. Gonna play this loud today.
Thanks for the insight, Hank.
OK guys, now that literally everybody on the entire internet has had a turn at making Robin Williams's death all about themselves, can we talk about something else?
Is this tour almost over or what? There's really, truly nothing interesting about these covers. It's a fun idea, I'm glad the fans are enjoying it, but it's really not daily-update-caliber news.
Still waiting on a single example of the word "harmonies" being used in reference to the entire instrumental backing track of a rock/pop song. Send it along when you find it. Thanks!
"We are boot-camp ready for Lisbon in October, so with the will of many gods, hopefully at least 38 of you will turn up."
How many gods will it take to ensure that Morrissey is among the 38 in attendance?
This is great.
It's impossible to overstate how much love and respect I have for Mike. Every album, every interview, every local tour date, I'm there. Possibly my favorite currently-active musician.
Comments