Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Japanese suffering
The news outlets are all loaded with the recent 8.9 earthquake followed with a tsunami that hit the northeast of Japan. My condolences and prayers go out to those poor people caught up in this horrendous disaster. There is nothing good to come of this mess. The media is focusing on the nuclear reactor problems Japan is having, but I believe that the problems with meltdown are overblown and the government should worry about other much more severe problems at hand.
Nuclear reactor issues at Fukushima have caused quite a stir. Some of the buildings had explosions and several fires have erupted. The fear is of a reactor meltdown releasing a significant amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere may occur if officials can not cool down a couple of the reactors. Fear of a meltdown is real. Radiation in the local area has been measured at a magnitude or greater than background. Long term exposure to this level is unhealthy, but could mitigated. If meltdown does commence, the release would be devastating to local regions up to 50 miles from the plant. Anyone present when a meltdown release occurs would be exposed to a large quantity of toxic materials potentially resulting in all sorts of radiation sickness and future cancer. Very bad! Beyond the local region, I do not see effects from radiation or radioactive materials hurting people. Even with winds blowing materials.
What should be of concern are more mundane, yet destructive problems that could occur from the disaster. The ability to deliver clean water and food has been wiped out by the disaster. Transportation methods are all disabled. Millions of people are also homeless in the aftermath. If these people do quickly get water and food, they will face dehydration or starvation. This requires only a few days without basics, so this threat is imminent. Getting in the necessary supplies into the area is difficult when roads, railways, airports and shipping are all wiped out. The secondary threat is from water-born disease. Cholera and typhoid easily spread with stagnate water loaded full of dirty debris including sewage and various animal/human corps. Dealing with a health epidemic inside a natural disaster would only add to the woes. If either problem previously described in this paragraph take hold, tens of thousand of people could unnecessarily perish.
I guess our media has to hype the politically sensitive issues even though they are the least threatening. No one wants to tune into hear the standard starvation/disease monologue which occurs routinely. Nuclear meltdowns occur once in a decade and make sensational stories. When watching media stories, remember this.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Ever elusive hipness
Update: 3-9-2011:
One of my Facebook friends, Damian, pointed out that there are many groups who define what is "hip". What one group finds hip another finds repulsive. He is correct in this sense. There are many subcultures out there with a hip or in-crowd. Each is unique in their style, geography, social class, age range and philosophy. The best example I can think of a subculture is '80s punk's nihilistic underground. My original post covers what would be considered "mainstream American youth culture". The original post points to the ever changing composition of mainstream youth culture and its obsession with materialism and lack of philosophical ideals in comparison to recent youth movements.
Original Post:
Most of my posts tend to cover technology with a little finance thrown in for spice. This post is a personal view of modern American life. It is about the current state of being "hip" or "cool". The in-crowd member. American hipness is for young adults in the late teens through their 20's before they settle down and have kids. This is common and nothing new. Even in my 20's I was not with the in-crowd, but could spot culture trends. What I find confounding is the vapid nature of current hipsters.
Let's go back to previous decades, the 60's, 70's and 80's. In these decades, styles tended to be easy to pick out along with their social movements. The 60's had long-haired, second-hand clothed hippies. It was not difficult to pick out the styles and imitate them. The 70's had similar styles as the '60s, but certain aspects changed, most definitely the music. Fast-forward to the '80s, everything changed with the punk movement, electronica movement and hair-metal bands. Head-bands, bracelets, torn jeans and bright colors ruled the day. One could pick out these distinct styles. We will move on to early '90s with the grunge movement. The grunge movement was the antithesis of the '80s hair-metal. Simplistic in nature, grunge was easy to spot.
In the late '90s, styles became less distinct. There was no large scale social movement. Music became a rehash of prior styles (much of it good). Style sort of fell into a drift. What is cool? It seems like to be hip one had to have direct connection with the hip crowd. Styles change so fast it is difficult to even recognize that hat you are wearing was soooooooooo yesterday.
It almost seems as a few people monopolize on being hip. Instead of fitting into a crowd, it became excluding the majority of people, even young people. Often today, being a hipster has a negative connotation. I had a few friends about 4 years ago who were 18-19 years old. They were aspiring artists (i.e. no money). By all means, they would be considered hip. One night while at their numerous parties, a friend mentioned his bad run-in with a group of "hipsters" in Austin. This struck me as odd, but thinking more about it, it makes sense. I also know of a young lady who tried to keep up with the in-crowd and the chase put her $30,000 in debt. Currently, I believe being hip is more than about style and nothing to do with a social movement. It is about being the proper age/class and that is about being both young and wealthy.
I believe this reflects the income disparity and social stratification in our society. Even the youth are voluntarily excluding each other. Distinction not by race, religion, age, or philosophy, but exclusion by economic class.
One of my Facebook friends, Damian, pointed out that there are many groups who define what is "hip". What one group finds hip another finds repulsive. He is correct in this sense. There are many subcultures out there with a hip or in-crowd. Each is unique in their style, geography, social class, age range and philosophy. The best example I can think of a subculture is '80s punk's nihilistic underground. My original post covers what would be considered "mainstream American youth culture". The original post points to the ever changing composition of mainstream youth culture and its obsession with materialism and lack of philosophical ideals in comparison to recent youth movements.
Original Post:
Most of my posts tend to cover technology with a little finance thrown in for spice. This post is a personal view of modern American life. It is about the current state of being "hip" or "cool". The in-crowd member. American hipness is for young adults in the late teens through their 20's before they settle down and have kids. This is common and nothing new. Even in my 20's I was not with the in-crowd, but could spot culture trends. What I find confounding is the vapid nature of current hipsters.
Let's go back to previous decades, the 60's, 70's and 80's. In these decades, styles tended to be easy to pick out along with their social movements. The 60's had long-haired, second-hand clothed hippies. It was not difficult to pick out the styles and imitate them. The 70's had similar styles as the '60s, but certain aspects changed, most definitely the music. Fast-forward to the '80s, everything changed with the punk movement, electronica movement and hair-metal bands. Head-bands, bracelets, torn jeans and bright colors ruled the day. One could pick out these distinct styles. We will move on to early '90s with the grunge movement. The grunge movement was the antithesis of the '80s hair-metal. Simplistic in nature, grunge was easy to spot.
In the late '90s, styles became less distinct. There was no large scale social movement. Music became a rehash of prior styles (much of it good). Style sort of fell into a drift. What is cool? It seems like to be hip one had to have direct connection with the hip crowd. Styles change so fast it is difficult to even recognize that hat you are wearing was soooooooooo yesterday.
It almost seems as a few people monopolize on being hip. Instead of fitting into a crowd, it became excluding the majority of people, even young people. Often today, being a hipster has a negative connotation. I had a few friends about 4 years ago who were 18-19 years old. They were aspiring artists (i.e. no money). By all means, they would be considered hip. One night while at their numerous parties, a friend mentioned his bad run-in with a group of "hipsters" in Austin. This struck me as odd, but thinking more about it, it makes sense. I also know of a young lady who tried to keep up with the in-crowd and the chase put her $30,000 in debt. Currently, I believe being hip is more than about style and nothing to do with a social movement. It is about being the proper age/class and that is about being both young and wealthy.
I believe this reflects the income disparity and social stratification in our society. Even the youth are voluntarily excluding each other. Distinction not by race, religion, age, or philosophy, but exclusion by economic class.
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