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All Hail the Double Face Palm of Fashion!
Oh the consternation! Oh the anguish! What are people to do when presented with such a horrible choicewhen their very societal presence and standing threatened by a humble German sandal.
Dear Fashion World and associated flaky devotees – you amuse the fuck out of me. Someone ‘famous’ does something different and then whether it is a good thing or not, you ravenous lemmings go whole-hog-wild and make it a trend.
Case in point – Australian bedroom slippers:
“Generally worn for warmth and comfort, Australian ugg boots had never been considered fashionable in their country of origin.[27] But the Deckers UGG brand emerged as a fashion trend in the US through Deckers’ actions to promote it as a high fashion brand. Deckers solicited endorsements from celebrities such as Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker,[29][35] Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lopez,[36] and product placements in television series such as Sex and the City, and films such as Raising Helen.[27][37] This marketing campaign “led to an exponential growth in the brand’s popularity and recognizability.”[38] Oprah Winfrey received a free pair when her endorsement was sought by Deckers; she then bought 350 pairs for her entire production staff, and eventually featured UGG brand boots as one of her “Favorite Things” on her TV talk show in 2000.[39] Other actresses who discovered UGG brand boots through surf shops began wearing them.[32] The company reported US$689 million in UGG sales in 2008,[40] almost a 50-fold increase from 1995;[41] By 2012, worldwide sales of Deckers UGG boots were over US$630 million a year, with 95% of world market share. By way of contrast, ugg boots in Australia were worn predominantly as slippers and associated with “daggy fashion sense, bogan behaviour” and the “outer suburbs” when worn in public.[42][43][44][45][2] According to Australian fashion stylist Justin Craig: “The only people who get away with wearing them are models, who give out the message: ‘I’m so beautiful, I can look good in any crap.‘“[29]
Yeah and now these slippers are nearly ubiquitous – why? – because the people on TV said they were cool. *facepalm*
Now, you people doing the same thing with Birkenstocks. Someone who, arbitrarily appointed as famous, wears a pair of birkenstocks, and an article of footwear once considered “untouchable” is now hotter and more of a “must-have” than the preserved tears of baby-jebus. It is a load of foolish bandwagoneering that illustrates how ingrained the herd mentality is and how pliable the term ‘fashionable’ is.
“Why Arb,?” my gentle readers must be asking. “Where is this all this bitter animus coming from?” Well dear readers it comes from my adoption of Birkenstocks as footwear of choice based on the utilitarian needs these shoes satisfy for me. From my shiny patent leather dress shoes, to my winter/teaching clogs, to my summer sandals, Birkenstocks have meant I can work and play in comfort and not have to worry about unergonomic footwear slowing me down or ruining my posture. Birkenstocks are well made, high quality, highly – utilitarian products – that when associated with the frivolity of the fashion world, irks me to no end.
Oh, and I have not forgotten about Tom’s either with their insipid ‘feel-good’ marketing bullcookery.
I’m glad I’ll be dead when humanity’s collective shit hits the fan. I used to get all wrapped up in debates about Capitalism and the slow motion Seppuku we’re committing. I was genuinely flummoxed when my arguments were characterized as hopelessly naive and that my positions were unfounded vis-a-vis economic reality (a.k.a the dominant capitalist consumption paradigm).
Bollocks to that noise.
I’m out of fucks to give about important economic arguments and how super-fucking-awesome capitalism is. I will not be around when glitz comes off of our over-consumption and enough of humanity realizes how hard they’ve been screwed over by our benevolent job creating, all-boats-raising, [insert mendacious free-market dogmatic sentiment here], elite whose only goal is to keep their particular party going on the backs of every else. I, if consciousness exists after corporeal death, will be bathing in tears of the elite, relishing every savoury nanosecond of schadenfreude, as their hard “earned” lifestyle and material wealth crumbles to ash in a fiery pyre with the rest humanity.
Our human tendency to stratify our societies is our downfall. The inequalities that capitalism creates blinds those with power and privilege to the destruction of the very means of survival. Ronald Wright wrote this about the importance of the biosphere and the resources it supplies. To0 tree-huggy for you? Tough darts friend, the historical record is littered with the wrecks of societies that did not learn this fundamental lesson.
The lesson I read in the past is this: that the health of land and water – and of woods, which are the keepers of water – can be the only lasting basis for any civilization’s survival and success.
—A Short History of Progress, p 105
Don’t believe me? Well fuckmesideways bro, you don’t have too, it might be easier if you don’t see this one coming. The good scientists over at NASA have published a neat study on the merry death-spiral we happen to be inhabiting, The Guardian has an article summarizing said paper, thus we’ll peruse the highlights here.
This paragraph’s prescience is chilling:
“Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.”
Useful thought experiment time. Imagine when you were a teenager. Remember how thoroughly self absorbed, shallow, and brain-dead you were? That same myopic narcissism is reflected in intellectual, political and social stands that typify the attitudes of the elite. This NASA study is a smackdown of all of what our cherished elites hold dear.
Will a peer reviewed article suddenly change minds and ingrained attitudes? Considerthe prevalence and persistence of religious belief despite the wealth of knowledge that contradicts said venerated mythology. The sheer number of people that haplessly cling to religious delusion is a testament to the doggerel stupidity our species is infected with. The peoples minds we need to change have the influence and the inclination not to listen to reason. So let’s not get all lathered up about the ramifications of this report, even if does purportedly deal in fact.
“It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:
“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.
Mmm. Sounds nothing at all like our society. But let’s not learn from the past because the ignoble fate suffered by those societies couldn’t possibly happen today.
Because hubris.
(I could have stopped the post here, but sadly, my sanguine nature runs both wide and deep, thus we continue, hoping a difference might be made)
But what are the causes of the downfall of human civilizations?
“[…]lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]” These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”
Wow. You mean the rich worry only about getting richer and fucking everyone else over is an actual historical(now supported with SCIENCE!!!)fact? Thank you brave scientists heads for nailing that conclusion that has been obvious to anyone who studies history and has more than two fucking neurons to rub together. So one could say that a system that creates stratification – CAPITALISM – isn’t a really a good system to blindly, balls-to-the-wall-style, endorse. Who would have figured that shit out (hint: rhymes with ‘parks’).
“Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with “Elites” based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:
“… accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.”
Are you enjoying your peon status? I know I certainly am. But hey, you could make it rich someday too and live just like the fat cats – not that the elites would propagate popular myths (thank you corporate media) to keep the drones in line. But why listen to bitter ole Arbourist? Ronald Wright has done the dirty work and comes to a similar (paraphrased)conclusion:
“Wright sees needed reforms being blocked by vested interests who reject multi-lateral organisations, and support laissez-faire economics and transfers of power to corporations as leading to the social and environmental degradations that led to the collapse of previous civilisations. Necessary reforms are, in Wright’s view, being blocked by vested interests who are hostile to change, including American market extremists. Wright concludes that “our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance” and calls for a shift towards long-term thinking:”
Yep, and the Elites and their libertarian teenager mentality are going to resolutely deny this until they are standing in the warm rich glow of their freshly razed gated communities and mansions. Only then does this sort of message sink in.
“Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.” In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:
“…. appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.”
So many options, how about option #2?
“Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that “with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.”
Oh this sounds all gloomy and pretty shitty overall, do we have some sciency facts on this? Of course we do…
“In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe.” The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how “historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).”
Pretty good argument for a more egalitarian society no? Because the status quo means most of us die and the remainder to to live life Hobbsian style: “Nasty, Brutish 
and short.” Did statement that just send up a dog whistle for our dear friends of capitalism?? Sharing wealth, income redistribution.. the soon to be named spectre of unfuckingwashed Socialism?
Damn straight, son.
Oh were you contemplating bringing some apologia for capitalism to the comments section to set me straight on how fucking wonderful it is and how really if we just keep innovating it will be a panacea for all? (Tell that to third world parents whose kids(21 a minute if you have statistical fetish) are still dying of preventable diseases). Change this shitty system now or get used to the happy-funtime reality that Hobbes and Malthus intimately describe.
“Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:
“While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”
It won’t change, not by our hand. I get that – keep the orgy going kids; I expect nothing less.
But as I said earlier I won’t be around to stew when things go sideways (well maybe as a wizened old soul on a rocking chair with a shotgun and cats), so enjoy your mess assholes. I’m frackking done with this.
Let’s close with a non swear word laden summary from Ronald Wright of many of my thoughts on humanities majestic progress and the challenges we face:
“Things are moving so fast that inaction itself is one of the biggest mistakes. The 10,000-year experiment of the settled life will stand or fall by what we
do, and don’t do, now. The reform that is needed is not anti-capitalist, anti-American, or even deep environmentalist; it is simply the transition from short-term to long-term thinking. From recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle.
The great advantage we have, our best chance for avoiding the fate of past societies, is that we know about those past societies. We can see how and why they went wrong. Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.
We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees’ seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones. If we don’t do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands.”
—A Short History of Progress, p 131–2
Short History of Progress Wikipedia.
Short History of Progress Review on Quill and Quire
Surviving Progress: Documentary Film featuring Ronald Wright.
The Massey Lecture Series: A Short History of Progress produced by the CBC on youtube-
When arguing about abortion and other moral topics, one is almost guaranteed to hear this lofty phrase trotted out. Like a a gentle desert sirocco, you only miss it when it isn’t there. People seem to have some very strange ideas about how we regularly treat each other here on Earth.
Realistically speaking, the phrase “sanctity of human life”is a misnomer. We here in the ‘Civilized West’ extinguish human life at a record pace whether actively though war or passively through indifference and neglect.
“But Arbourist!”, says the lay reader of DWR, “we in the West, have technology, capitalism and democracy that raises all of the boats and keeps our people well off. Well yes lay reader but, our relative prosperity is a direct result of our society almost always wielding the bigger stick and vigourously applying it to all of those people around us until they acquiesced or died under our not so gentle ministrations.
We laid waste other civilizations and then built our own in the blood soaked ashes of the wanton slaughter we perpetrated. There was no sanctity of human life then: it was us or them and jebus willing, it had better be them.
Yes, our lovely notions of morality are quickly set aside once it gets down to us vs. them. The best part is that “them” does not even need to be a threat; our benevolent political leadership will kindly manufacture a threat to dehumanize whomever stands in the way of our geopolitical goals (those damn Arabs having the temerity to live on top of our oil, for example). Sanctity of what again? If it wasn’t Churchill gassing the Arabs for being uppity for not subscribing to the benevolent British dictatorship administered by local satraps, it was those same Arabs who needed a good bombing/droning by the enlightened US of A to make them see all the benefits of a US sponsored benevolent dictatorship.
So many flavours of tyranny!
So many people that need to die before they understand what is good for them (us). All this respect for human life, and we’ve covered the ever so smallest part of the active destruction of humanity. For a change of depression let us flit over to the passive neglectful side of our deep commitment to the sanctity of human life.
From the Unicef site:
More than 70 per cent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.
These deaths occur mainly in the developing world. An Ethiopian child is 30 times more likely to die by his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe. Among deaths in children, South-central Asia has the highest number of neonatal deaths, while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates. Two-thirds of deaths occur in just 10 countries.
And the majority are preventable. Some of the deaths occur from illnesses like measles, malaria or tetanus. Others result indirectly from marginalization, conflict and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition and the lack of safe water and sanitation contribute to half of all these children’s deaths.
But disease isn’t inevitable, nor do children with these diseases need to die. Research and experience show that six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines, antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and improved family care and breastfeeding practices.
Neat how that works. So much waste of human life, for what? A slight reduction in the standards of Western living? Well we certainly can’t see their suffering and dying, soooo…it doesn’t really count then right?
Right? Because sanctity of human life is such a important moral precept over here in the West. Because we value life so damn much and it is so important to us.
Bull.
Shit.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to stare down the barrel of a gun loaded with stupid. Thanks to the phenomena known as Neknominating, now I know. I have yet more people to add to my already turgid list of people who are too dumb to live.
Neknominate – People record themselves chugging or “necking” — usually beer — often doing something else extreme at the same time. Then they nominate others to out-drink them.
As the CBC gravely intones:
“A potentially dangerous new online video trend where people down alcoholic drinks in sometimes increasingly extreme ways, then challenge friends to do the same, is growing in popularity across the globe.”
I’m waiting for the trend in which people do stupid-shit while mowing the lawn, or shoveling snow, or picking up litter and then posting that on the internet. But hell no, that might actually improve the world. Pro social behaviour? Forget that noise.
I wonder sometimes about the decision to stay in my lovely hometown of Edmonton with weather like this:
And frigid vehicles like this:
But then I remember I hate these, and then the winterwonderhell weather becomes much more tolerable –
Religion inspires hatred.
Anyone proclaiming they are chosen ones, or are better than someone else because of pious qualities x,y,z are almost always horribly unethical people. Case in point the recent frenzy in the United States featuring devout followers of Christ insulting wait staff with homophobic slurs and not tipping them because it ‘goes against god’. But it is always best to let the bigots speak for themselves. First an incident in New Jersey:
When Morales introduced herself to the couple and their two children, the mother was allegedly shocked by Morales’ short hair.
“Oh I thought you were gonna say your name is Dan,” she allegedly said. “You sure surprised us!”
At the end of the meal, Morales was left with no tip on the $93.55 bill. Instead, she found a note on the receipt, reading: “I’m sorry but I cannot tip because I don’t agree with your lifestyle & how you live your life.”
Wow. I’ll let Morales speak for herself in reply to this discrimination.
“I am THOROUGHLY offended mad pissed off and hurt that THIS is what her kids will grow up learning and that I served in the Marines to keep ignorant people like them free. Sorry lady but I don’t agree with YOUR lifestyle and the way you’re raising your kids but you didn’t see me throwing that in your face and giving you shitty service. Keep your damn mouth shut and pray we never cross paths again.”
Let’s get this out of way now – the sexual preferences and orientation of your server has exactly zero to do with the quality of service they provide for you. The problem as illustrated lies entirely within the framework of the person being the asshat. Oh, and are you seeing the love that christians constantly knacker on about any here.
No?
I only see prejudice, fear and bigotry’ the usual unholy trifecta “ethical religious behaviour”.
A popular Italian eatery in Kansas where a server received this charming note on the bill:
“Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. Queers do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD’S love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you.”
Thank you religion for keeping one of the strongest sources of ingroup/outgroup trauma alive and well in the 21st century. This is the kind of repugnant thinking that grows out of following bronze-age mythology. The sanctimonious hatred and fear that would prompt someone to write this to their server speaks volumes on how the ethics of religion stack up to modern moral interpretation.
As in, not at fracking all.
Oh sure, I’m generalizing but generalizing correctly. There is no need to look farther than the Republican Party of the United States and the piously-twisted shit that they (the christian right) are proposing on almost a daily basis in the US Congress. Hatred of women, the poor, people who are not white, and not straight are regular targets the christian hate machine.
This undulating wave of vicious hatred spews forth from the same people who like to say “god is love” and if we just let christ into our hearts we can find salvation.
Fuck your god, fuck your christ and a double fuck to your “salvation”.
Sideways.
The treatment of the innocent service staff in restaurants makes me angry you feeble-minded, bigoted, christian fucks. Anyone with the smallest shred of ethical fiber can see the grievous harm your ass-clam of a religion brings into the world and would rightly condemn it for being an insidious, retrograde movement, that is making the world a shittier place to live in.
One of my responsibilities in my part time job is to ensure that the bathrooms are reasonably clean and stocked, this equates roughly to once a shift boogieing around the building with a cart full of TP and paper towel (or many times during the most dreaded of all times on campus, dance festival season, but that is a different post). I’m not sure if behaviour in bathrooms are a psychological goldmine for understanding the human psyche, but a couple of interesting behaviours come to mind when it comes to maintaining the Water-closets where I work.
1. The amazing stupidity of people who think that wetting a bit of paper towel or TP and putting it on the roll of TP; thus ruining an entire roll of toilet paper. For what? What brave crusade are you fighting here dudes (and it is always dudes, not once in my 10 years working have I seen women be this stupid)? Your brave ‘fuck the system’ stance starts with destroying 45 cents worth of TP? Your cherished radical narchism has no room for bumfluff? The fuq? I just don’t get it.
2. For point two we have pictorial evidence. Observe.
Aww, you don’t want to catch anything from the nasty toilet seat, amiright? Your fine sense of hygiene is protecting your valued tuckus by laying down that half-micron thick patina of toilet paper protection. You are good now, “golden” even. You can do your business confidently and securely. Your commitment to cleanliness and hygiene should be applauded.
So, hyper hygiene freaks, why do you leave the TP on the seat? What is your reasoning behind this? Is pushing the TP the two centimeters into the bowl some sort Everest K2 type of task? Is Atlas pounding on the door demanding that you save some of that world-lifting action for him? If you’re all squicky about touching the TP your ass was just on could you not use your foot and nudge the now “toxic” paper straight into the loo (it is what I do after shaking my head for having to deal with your idiocy)?
Here is my hypothesis – and this applies to both dudes and dudettes – you are worried about your hygiene, but in your cravenly small self centered universe you really don’t care about the next person who has to deal with now adorned porcelain you’ve left behind. You exhibit a glaringly pathetic of empathy and consideration for the next person by not taking the two seconds to move your butt-shield into the loo. Concomitantly you are also slavishly embracing the foolhardy notion of the world revolving around your special-snowflake axis of posterior protection; and that positively pisses me off.
And thus, you too my toilet dressing friend are lumped into the same opprobrium deserving category as the brave anarchists sticking it to the Man by wetting toilet paper rolls.
Do you do this? If you do, please consider reforming your behaviour as I am sure it is furrowing brows everywhere for those who have to look after restrooms and puzzle why people do such inane things on such a regular basis.
Gaah!
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…