The good news:  I have more ideas for posts!

The bad news (unless you’re a big fan): They’re all about Sonic the Hedgehog and My Little Pony.

I would like to discuss an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that has been bugging me for a while.  In fact, the most common Internet interpretation of the episode bothers me a lot.

The episode is “Easy-Peasy Cider Squeezy 2000.”  The interpretation by armchair child psychologists is that the episode is pro-Apple-Corporation propaganda.  Which is funny, because the message I saw in the episode was the exact opposite.

Episode Synopsis

If you’d rather watch the episode, it’s viewable on YouTube.

Basically, it’s apple cider season, and all the ponies are lined up at Sweet Apple Acres to buy some fresh-squeezed, home-grown apple cider.  But it takes a long time to make the cider, and there isn’t enough for everybody to have all they want.  Flim and Flam roll into town with their cider-squeezing machine, providing an additional source of cider.  Not only that, but they charge significantly more for the cider and use apples from Sweet Apple Acres orchard without paying for them.

When the ponies start rushing to Flim and Flam in droves, threatening to put Sweet Apple Acres out of business, they suggest a friendly competition.  If Sweet Apple Acres can produce more high-quality cider than Flim and Flam within the time limit, then the two strangers will move on to a different town.  If Flim and Flam win, they stay in Ponyville, even if they end up driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business.

Flim and Flam manage to make slightly more cider, but only because they cheat: they are shown skimping on apple inspections, and towards the end of the contest, they increase the volume of cider produced by feeding entire trees into their machine.  Because the ponies of Sweet Apple Acres still managed to produce the same high-quality cider, Flim and Flam are forced to admit defeat, and their dishonest business is driven out of the city.

Problems with the pro-Apple idea:

The link between apple cider and Apple products is tenuous, at best.  I know, I know.  Cider is made from Apples, and Apple is also the name of a major corporation.  But let’s look at the names of every Apple product I can think of:

• Apple I
• Apple II
• Macintosh (sometimes with a suffix attached, like Classic or Performa)
• Mac OS (of which there have been at least 10)
• PeoplePC
• iMac
• iBook (the laptop version of the iMac)
• iPod (sometimes with a suffix attached, like Shuffle or Touch)
• iOS (current version 5.5)
• iTunes
• iPad

None of those product names sounds even remotely like “cider,” nor are they* in any way beverage-related.  In fact, I’d think a more serious problem is that when the people critiquing this episode hear the word “apple” in any business-related context, they apparently immediately think of the Apple company instead of actual apples.  That is a problem caused by the over-hyping of a major corporation, right there.

Sweet Apple Acres orchard doesn’t get their products from overseas sweatshops or big factories: They make their cider by hand, at home.  Apple is not a family business; Sweet Apple Acres is.

Flim and Flam not only start off selling their cider for a vastly inflated price, but during the competition, they cheat by using obviously unethical business practices.  Major corporations, including Apple, do that sort of thing all the time.  In fact, one of the reasons Apple has had to step up its marketing campaign in recent years is because other computers are less expensive and easier to repair, and Apple doesn’t like the competition.**

In the letter to Princess Celestia, Applejack clearly states that the value of Sweet Apple Acres cider is that it’s homemade with love and sold at a fair price, instead of being made in unethical ways.  Again, this sounds nothing whatsoever like the mass-produced, sweatshop-made, overpriced electronics made by Apple.

Lastly, and most importantly, if I didn’t see a parallel to Apple as an adult until the comparison was pointed out to me later, then why on earth would kids watching the show automatically assume it’s about electronic devices instead of homemade apple cider?  Kids don’t read as much into a show as adults do, and symbolism is generally lost on the under-5 crowd unless you explicitly point out what every symbol stands for.  This is also why children don’t understand idioms like “raining cats and dogs” or “I was beside myself with anger” until an adult explains each one to them.  You’d think that online publications about parenting young children would know this basic bit of child psychology, but those publications were the main source of the complaints.

My interpretation:

Okay, so what is my take on all this?  I honestly believed the lesson of this episode was as follows:  Know where your food comes from, don’t buy more of a product than you need,# and don’t buy unethically mass-produced things when alternatives are available.  In fact, given that the villains use machines to make and sell mass-produced cider, and the cartoon is owned by Hasbro, a producer of mass-produced plastic toys, I thought it was pretty ballsy of the writers## to write an episode that basically slammed major corporations in general.

--------------------------------------

Footnotes:

* the names or the products

** Think about it.  Most owners of Apple products have a copy of iTunes and an iPod, iPhone, or iPad.  They don’t have an iMac or iBook.  Most owners of standard desktop and laptop computers have a different brand.

# In the episode, Pinkie Pie buys up enough glasses of cider to easily add up to a full barrel, while Rainbow Dash is left with nothing.

## Lauren Faust no longer writes for the show, nor was she ever the only writer of episodes.  The credit for writing good episodes belongs to all the writers.

(NOTE: I was not paid to write this review in any way, shape or form.)

Basically, the app is reasonably good to navigate, pages are easy to read, and the selection isn’t half-bad.  The availability of a few free issues is also a nice gesture and a reasonable introduction to the series for folks who haven’t been reading it for ages already.

If you liked the Archie Sonic series, this is a nice way to get your fix.  If you’re curious about why people like me still care about the series at all, DUDE!  FREE COMICS! :P

OK, so, I've wanted a wacom tablet for about a decade now.  With my tax refund in, I've decided to finally buy one.

If possible, I want to get it in-store, to avoid shipping issues and so that I can use it right away.  (I did find a tablet on Amazon, but I'm leaving it in my cart for now in case I don't find anything while out and about today.  Like I said, I prefer to buy things in actual stores whenever possible.)

Google, Bing, and the phone book have all failed me.

I look up electronics stores on Google, and the only ones nearby are either computer repair shops, audio/video equipment specialists, or the Best Buy that specifically told me when I asked that they sold no such thing.  (Somebody's lying--I checked Best Buy's website, and that specific store is listed as having several models in stock.  Yet the people in BB's computer section at the store itself said they had none.)

Bing is downright stupid when it comes to finding actual brick-and-mortar stores.  If you're looking for something shopping-related, then according to Bing, that means you only want to shop online.  Ever.  I shudder to think what would happen if you used Bing to look up a dry-cleaner or restaurant.

The Terrible Twosome (Walmart and Target) also are no help.  Walmart sells the tablets online only, and Target doesn't seem to be aware that such a thing exists.

I turned to the traditional method of finding local things, the humble phone book.  After reading off about half-a-dozen stores in the next county, I double-checked the cover.

Apparently, the phone book focuses more on the townships south of me than on the township I am actually in.  Every single area listed on the cover, other than the township I live in, is to the south.  Some are in the next county.  All of them require me to travel on I-95 southbound to get to them, which is a horrible experience at any time of day.

All I want is to go into a real live store, give them my money, and get a tablet.  Why is this harder to do with the Internet than it was without?

We all knew that before Newt married his second and third wives, that he was cheating on the previous wife with them.  Both wives are ex-mistresses.  However, it was only a few days ago that we learned that juicy tidbit about Newt asking his second wife to be part of an “open marriage” arrangement.  She refused; Newt divorced Wife #2/Mistress #1 to marry Wife #3/Mistress #2.

As Dan Savage pointed out in this week’s Savage Love column (warning:  this column is sexually explicit and may contain offensive content), this is not an example of how any relationship, monogamous or polyamorous, should be conducted.  Why not?

Newt had been fucking Callista, his devoutly Catholic mistress, for six years when he made the big ask. Newt's second wife wouldn't agree to an open marriage, according to Newt's second wife, which is how she became Newt's second ex-wife and Newt's mistress—the devoutly Catholic Callista—became Newt's third wife.

[…]

Did Callista know about Newt's open marriage proposal? Did Newt bounce the idea off his devoutly Catholic mistress first? Maybe right after he finished bouncing himself off his devoutly Catholic mistress?

Would the devout Catholic still be Newt's mistress today if the second Mrs. Gingrich had agreed to remain in the marriage that Newt had already opened?

If you’re going to open up a marriage, you ask before you start having sex with other people.   If you don’t have explicit permission from your SO to have sex or kinky play with other people, then doing so is cheating.  Relationships are built on honesty and openness with your SO.  Once that honesty is gone, once you prove that your SO cannot trust you as far as he/she can throw you, the relationship is dead.

And as Dan points out, we don’t know how much Callista knew about the whole situation.  I’m assuming she knew Newt was married (that’s not exactly the sort of thing an elected official can easily hide, after all).  Did she know Newt was trying to sweet-talk his wife into legitimizing his affair after the fact via open marriage? 

Does she realize that having an affair is like gossip, and that if someone will do it with you, they’re probably going to do it to you sooner or later?

At times, I’m almost tempted to become Mistress #3/Wife #4 and stick around just long enough to ruin Gingrich’s career and make off with a good chunk of his money.  The problem with that plan is, I would have to have sex with Newt Gingrich.  I’m sorry, Newt, but I do have standards.  You’ll just have to find someone else to be a massive hypocrite with.

My brother's phone broke, and he had to use my upgrade to get a new one.
We have received several of each other's calls and texts.
DO NOT CALL OR TEXT MY CELL PHONE until we get things sorted out.  If you need to contact me, use my YIM, MSN, LiveJournal, or the PMs here.

C. S. Lewis is well-known for creating literary masterpieces for both children and adults, including the Narnia series.  I’m not going to talk about the wonderful locales and creatures, the Christian allegories, or the alchemical references—at least not in this post.  Books have been written about those aspects of the stories, and I don’t feel like I have anything to add about them.

No, today, I’m going to talk about Jadis.

Introduced in 1947 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as the White Witch,* Jadis is also a central figure in the prequel The Magician’s Nephew, written eight years later.  Her motivations are a bit more clearly fleshed out in The Magician’s Nephew, so all quotes in this entry are from that book unless otherwise noted.

“Who has awaked me?  Who has broken the spell?” she asked.

“I think it must have been me,” said Digory.

“You!” said the Queen, […] “You? But you are only a child, a common child.  Anyone can see at a glance that you have no drop of royal or noble blood in your veins.”

Digory brought Jadis out of suspended animation, and the first thing she does is express disbelief and contempt that her savior is a commoner instead of a wealthy noble.  Because ordinary people clearly can’t walk into a room and strike an bell with a hammer.  Common people can’t just walk into a deserted castle with no guards!  That’s blasphemy!

As the children escape the crumbling castle, Jadis occasionally mentions rooms in the castle as they pass them by.  Which rooms? Why, torture chambers and dungeon halls of course!  It thus comes as no surprise when Jadis destroys the huge palace gates with a word and a gesture, and says, “[R]emember what you have seen.  This is what happens to things, and to people, who stand in my way.”

Jadis proves, again and again, that she values her own power over anything else.  Take, for example, the means by which she ends a civil war against her own sister:

“She flashed her horrible, wicked eyes upon me and said, ‘Victory.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘Victory, but not yours.’  Then I spoke the Deplorable Word.  A moment later I was the only living thing beneath the sun.”

That’s right, she’s so desperate to rule the world that she destroys every person, plant, animal, fungus, and microbe on the entire planet except herself when she realizes she won’t get her way.  There aren’t even any skeletons or remains of any sort left on the planet.  Narcissism, thy name is Jadis.  But she does justify her atrocity when pressed by the children.

“But the people?” gasped Digory.

“What people, boy?” asked the Queen.  [My, you’re considerate, Jadis.]

“All the ordinary people,” said Polly, “who’d never done you any harm.  And the women, and the children, and the animals.”

“Don’t you understand?” said the Queen (still speaking to Digory).  “I was the Queen.  They were all my people.  What else were they there for but to do my will? […]  You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I.  The weight of the world is on our shoulders.  We must be freed from all rules.  Ours is a high and lonely destiny.”

When Digory’s Uncle Andrew says that last sentence earlier in the book, the boy sees through it at once.  “‘All it means,’ he said to himself, ‘is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.’”

Also notice that Jadis cannot conceive of any other purpose a subject might have in life except serving her, or rebelling against her.  Any role, motive, or action a commoner has that doesn’t involve her is completely irrelevant (or possibly nonexistant!) in Jadis’s eyes.  She doesn’t even talk to Polly directly at any point in the book.  Digory woke her, and Digory is the male child (giving him more power during the story’s late Victorian/early Edwardian setting), so she only pays attention to Digory, then to Uncle Andrew.  She does not deign to interact with people who are not immediately useful to her.

But there aren’t any people like Jadis in the United States, right?  After all, she’s a tyrannical ruler of a dead world in a fantasy book written for children.

Well, except for this quote from Bloomberg Businessweek:

“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” (Home Depot co-founder Bernard) Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?” “If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit,” said Golisano, (billionaire founder of payroll processer Paychex Inc.)

Wow.  They don’t care about ordinary people, and they don’t care about being fair to others.  But surely this is an isolated incident.  It’s not like they would treat anti-predatory measures as discrimination against them or something…

Payday lending companies are combining their money in order to form a corporate front group to fight for the right to charge interest rates of 445 percent and more in the state of Missouri.

[…]

In its first two weeks of existence, Stand Up Missouri has already taken an Orwellian approach to the term “payday lending” – they prefer the phrase “traditional installment loan” – and invoked the Civil Rights Era to defend why payday lenders ought to be allowed to gouge consumers. An ad on their homepage currently explains to viewers how payday lenders are just like Dr. King and Civil Rights Era marchers.

The above is from this news article.  Clearly, insisting that people pay you back over 5 times as much as they borrowed is fair and right, as long as you’re rich when you do it.

We see this idea disturbingly often among the wealthiest Americans and their supporters.**  Other people exist only to make them more money, or to take their money away from them.  Human suffering and death are less important than making more money.  Unemployment and Social Security are pointless.  Medicare is a waste, because they can afford good health insurance, and the health of poor people isn’t nearly as important.  Regulations are needed for the common folk, but not for the megarich.

Theirs, you see, is a high and lonely destiny.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* The warrant for the arrest of Mr. Tumnus refers to her as “Her Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, Chatelaine of Cair Paravel, Empress of the Lone Islancs, etc.”  She is not referred to by name anywhere else in the book.

**Naturally, there are exceptions.  Unfortunately, decent wealthy people are overshadowed by the greedy amoral types I’m referring to in this journal entry.

So.  I read this article about showering.  It was interesting and informative, and frankly, when the hot water in your shower doesn’t work as it ought (even though all the other hot water in the house is fine) you tend to skip showers every once in a while anyway, especially during what passes for winter here (it is 70 degrees in southern Florida right now).

I saw a lot of negative comments on the article, though.  Most of them were along the lines of, “Have you been around people who haven’t showered in weeks?  They smell disgusting!  Personal hygiene, people!  TAKE A DAMN SHOWER!!”  The rest implied that people who didn’t shower daily were also lazy, in addition to not showering at all.

This is odd to me, because it doesn’t say anywhere in that article that you shouldn’t shower at all. It just says that you don’t have to shower every single day and that cutting back a little may actually be good for us.  (Plus, it saves water, which makes cutting back a green choice too!)

There is a massive difference between showering three or four times a week and not showering at all.  The article clearly supports the former over the latter.  It doesn’t say anywhere that you shouldn’t shower—just that people may want to shower less.  If you don’t understand the difference between “do this a bit less often” and “stop doing this,” you’re a moron, plain and simple.

To see how silly this is, let’s look at another personal bodily function—sex.  Is there any sort of middle ground between celibacy and having sex every day?  Of course there is! You could do it:

- every other day;

- weekly;

- monthly;

- biweekly;

- semi-weekly;

- or if your personal sex drive is low enough, yearly.

We all know this.  It’s painfully obvious that there are different amounts of sex that people can have.  Yet we seem to be unable to extend this to showers.

I agree that some people are so smelly that a good wash would do them a world of good.  And I certainly agree that people should shower on a regular basis—especially people who do physical work and work up a nice sweat!  But ours is the only society in history in which the average person bathed or showered every single day, and I’m pretty sure our ancestors didn’t go mad from the funk.  You can cut back a little—maybe not use as much soap on the less-oily parts of your body.  That’s all the bloggers at good.is are suggesting.

Dear Calvary Chapel:

This afternoon, I received your doorknob advertisement for Christmas church services.  While I am no longer a Christian, I was one for the vast majority of my life.  I have received doorknob ads for Chinese food, pizza delivery, and the like, but never before have I received one for spiritual nourishment.

I find your advertisement to be in rather poor taste for the following reasons:

1. It is an advertisement.  An invitation by a friend to attend his/her church is generally offered in the hope that the recipient will find the experience to be pleasant and spiritually fulfilling.  Advertising generally exists for the purposes of helping people make money.  When you use advertising to try to get people to go to a church service, something is rather off.  It implies that my spiritual well-being is less important to you than the money I could be putting in your offering plates.
2. It makes you look desperate to put such an advertisement, not only on my front door, but on the front door of every single condo unit in my building.  Yes, I noticed.
3. All those ads cost a lot of money to print.  You could have used that money to feed, clothe, and house many poor people in our local community.  The ensuing good publicity would draw new people to your congregation like iron filings to a magnet.  Advertising…doesn’t.
4. The schedule on the back of the ad indicates that Calvary Chapel is a multi-campus megachurch with 7 different locations.  I object to megachurches on principle, as they pervert the relationship a pastor ought to have with his/her congregation.  Pastors, rabbis, priests, priestesses, etc. ought to be available to all congregants to provide gentle guidance and personal advice.  It is difficult to do this in some large churches, and impossible in a church with a congregation of tens of thousands of people in several different counties.
5. Printed advertising wastes paper and ink, encourages littering, and is otherwise a rather damning indication of your level of respect for a world that your own holy book says is “very good.” I’m pretty sure this isn’t the kind of stewardship Jesus had in mind.  (See Genesis 1, Psalm 104:15-18, and Job 12:7-10 for more on the subject of Nature.)
6. As I noticed your ad immediately after lunch when I walked my dog, this indicates that you placed your ad out on a Sunday morning.  Seriously?  On the day of the week that ought to be dedicated to the worship of your God, you sent out people to put up an ad for Mammon posing as God?  Do you really think that’s going to score you any points with Him?