This post is brought to you by some conversations I’ve had recently based on a few items I’ve seen “in the news” and noting that, while the topics were pretty far removed from one another, the discussions I had carried some similar theme and tone.

First: pink slime. For those of you not aware, this is the new Big Scare in our food, with a panic induced by news agencies reporting on the inclusion of the so-dubbed “slime” (known also as boneless lean beef trimmings or lean finely textured beef) in ground beef supplies at every level of our society – grocery stores, fast food joints, schools, and the like. The issue centers around this material which is, essentially, a meat product left over from the normal process of separating meat from bone; basically, trimmings were left behind by the process, attached to the bone. In the 1980s, a process was found to “reclaim” the meat, remove fat by heating, remove bone fragments through a centrifuge, and then treating the meat with ammonia (or other chemicals) to reduce the chance of E. Coli and other potential pathogens. It’s used today as a cheap filler for ground beef products, offered as a cost-efficient, pathogen-free, meat alternative to other things often used in that same capacity.

The second topic is the rise of far-right German political mindsets. The far right in Germany is a thing treated with prejudice and caution, lest the horrors of the past rear up again; the problem they’re running into now is that this Neo-Nazism is springing up amongst the professional 20-somethings; the technologically-capable, web- and text-message-using youth, who empower themselves through the use of this technology for covert communication and quick, on-the-fly organization of Anonymous-style masked protest demonstrations that appear from the crowd, push their message of a Germany for the Germans, and then, before authorities can arrive, fade back into the crowd again. These events were recently highlighted when a three-person ‘cell’ of extremist right-wingers was cast into the news by a murder-suicide (or, possibly, double murder) and a defection alerting the media and authorities — a cell which had been on the proverbial radar for some years, including the discovery of a bomb-making laboratory / garage in 1998. Authorities, however, weren’t able to intervene too much, courtesy of restrictions on federal police actions that exist as a result of the Nazi regime’s own storied misuse of such agencies — because they couldn’t do anything, this cell continued to operate until very recently, and have been found responsible for a number of immigrant deaths in the meantime. At the same time, other Germans find themselves, thanks to that history and these kinds of cells, unable to practice any kind of national pride for (justified) fear of being labelled as the same kind of person; there’s serious talk now of the banning of an entire political party, the National Democratic Party, for possible similarities to the Nazi regime of old.

So, how do these things tie in to one another? In both cases, we see something that has existed within its society for some time — an unsavory element that, if exposed, becomes reviled — all it takes is that push from media outlet, opinion pieces presented on the nightly broadcast and taken as simple fact. Is the media lying outright when they present their case? Usually not, but they’re more than happy to regurgitate the ill-informed pundits and so-called experts who happen to believe in the same side of the argument as their story is pushing. They’re content not to correct those who take it all at face value, and assume that news stations are reporting news — that is, verified facts on the topic at hand, and reasoned examination of that topic.

But truth rarely makes ratings. It rarely makes a public furious enough to cry out and demand to be heard. But when things are twisted just ever so slightly, when a few extreme cases are cited and made to sound the norm, when the opinion piece slants in just the right way, people can be mobilized and motivated – and people in large enough chorus can evoke change in the world around them, moving towards a future without pink slime or nationally-proud Germans; a homogenized vision of the world where impurities in the body of humanity are expunged by force, as our own physical forms purge bacteria and the like through our immune systems. The question we face, then, is whether we want to be the white blood cells of society, cleansing ourselves from impurity identified to us by our media – and who’s interests are really at the heart of some of these expositions of “terrible evils” lurking below the surface.

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Don’t tell me that the second law of thermodynamics explains why time exists. That’s bullshit. The fact that entropy tends to increase is an observation and not an explanation. That law does nothing to explain *why* entropy tends to increase. So using it to try and rationalize why time exists is misguided at best. Sure, the demonstrable changes in entropy can be used to demonstrate that time does exist, but it doesn’t tell you why. If anyone wants to make a solid attempt at demonstrating a proof for why time progresses the way it does, I’m more than willing to listen.

I read a very interesting post recently in a psychology blog about how one improves their social standing.

It was a bit sad, really, how much of this struck me as being “common sense.” Is it really something I take as a given that in order to improve one’s social station in life, one must rely on deception? What does that say about my world view?

But it has some good points. Appear competent and make people think you are invested in them and they will ascribe all manner of irrelevant positive traits to you. So, speak up. Volunteer answers. Be proactive. Cultivate an image of nice-ness. Be a social extrovert and you will go further than your skills qualify you for.

I keep trying to think of something either sarcastically witty, or deeply profound to say. Should post here more often and my grandiose delusions keep leading me to believe everything written here will be paradigm shattering. Maybe I should tone it back a bit.