November 2009 Archives
Thanksgiving conversation
An actual quote from the Thanksgiving dinner table:
R: “Hi, I’m R. I’m J’s brother. We slept together until I was in college.”
Everyone else: “…”
R: “I mean, in the same room. Not in the same bed or anything.”
Fixed
I just fixed a bug (feature?) in my WordPress theme’s php – it wasn’t displaying a link to comments for a post unless there was at least one tag for that post. It makes me happier than it probably should to know that I can do that. It just shows that I’m finally learning stuff that I can use in real life!
I also just found an error in a slide for one of my classes. According to the professor they’ve been using the slides for several years, and no one had noticed until now. I SEE ERRORS!
Over the top
Today’s post on the Bizarro Blog (the blog of Dan Piraro, the author/artist of Bizarro) makes me kind of angry. It’s about animal rights. You might think, if a post about animal rights makes me angry, it must be something along the lines of “torturing animals is fun and there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with factory farming!” In fact, the post goes a little too far in the other direction. He sees the issue as so black and white that it actually pushes me away from it.
Two main examples from his post:
Some argue that zoos give the public face-to-face appreciation for animals that help them to protect them in the wild. Personally, I think that is a cop-out. I don’t need to visit an Indonesian orphan behind bars in a zoo to know I shouldn’t buy products made by ones being enslaved in Jakarta. If a person has a conscience, they don’t need the personal experience to understand an injustice, if they do not, the visit to the zoo doesn’t help anyway.
Um, guess what? There are TONS of people out there who buy products made by child laborers in Indonesia! And there are at least SOME of them (maybe not all, but at least some) who would be moved to do the research necessary to stop buying those products if they saw in person the kinds of conditions those children are living in.
Modern, “nice” zoos are not much better than archaic ones. No matter how nice your house is, if you’re not allowed to leave it for the rest of your life, you go nuts.
As someone who used to volunteer at a zoo, I’m a little offended by this. Saying that modern zoos aren’t much better than archaic ones is a bit like saying living in a cell with nothing but a window isn’t much better than living in a nice house with a TV and computer. Even if you can’t leave either one, there’s a HUGE difference in the quality of life you would experience in each. I might be taking the analogy a little far, but I know personally the research and effort that is put into keeping the animals at the Oregon Zoo happy, healthy and stimulated. It may not equal living free in the wild, but it definitely makes their lives more than just a little bit better.
I think his whole stance on animal rights is just too black and white. Either you boycott zoos and never eat or use any form of animal product ever, or you are a terrible person. It doesn’t matter if you try to take small steps towards making things better – specifically choosing to buy “happy” meat, only patronizing zoos that are shown to be as humane as possible, etc. No, that doesn’t matter. You’re just as bad as some redneck who eats McDonald’s hamburgers every day and leaves his dog in a kennel downstairs 23 hours a day.
If I were him, I’d add something like, “I’m prepared to do all of this, but I know not everyone is. If you can at least make some of these small steps, you will still be helping – and once you’ve taken those steps, you might find you’re willing to take a few more.” That validates people who are still trying, but not currently willing to go to the extremes that he advocates, rather than making them (us) feel like it’s worth nothing in his opinion.
750!
I’ve now logged 750 total miles run. It’s been kind of on/off for me lately – some weeks I run 7 miles, other weeks I run 18. One week I can barely force myself into my running shoes, other weeks I’m really excited about it. This week has been good so far – I started a new running route, which is good, and it’s been pretty weather too. I really do feel much better after a run outside than I do after the treadmill. But at this time of year, daylight is harder and harder to get, and homework piles up, so it can be hard to get out.
I’m still thinking about trying for a half marathon in April. That would mean I would start training for it in January. Which means I would need to start making sure I have the right base mileage to train starting in December. I figure between now and the end of the term, I’ll take it easy and just try to make sure I get in a minimum of 2 runs per week. Then, once the term is over, I’ll start running a bit more, and in January I’ll decide if I think I have the time and strength to go for a half marathon.
Sometimes I look back and say, “how did this happen?” I never really though I could get into running. I’m glad I have, though. I’m healthier, less stressed, I sleep better and feel better now. I hope I keep enjoying it!
