New Idea?

Just a suggestion for this week:

What needs changing? How should it be changed? (Where will we start?) Stream of conscience, persuasive, poetic, argumentative, quote-based, etc.

Just been on my mind--the state of things here. People are so wrapped up that they aren't living the life, ya know? Anyway, it's a thought.

Packaging beef [inside propaganda]

Carbon monoxide - it's what's for dinner.
It's also a slogan that will never be embraced by a beef industry blitzed by consumer groups for injecting carbon monoxide, the toxic gas found in tailpipe exhaust, into meat packages.
The carbon monoxide, which the Food and Drug Administration says is harmless at the levels being used, keeps the meat looking red for weeks by replacing the oxygen that would otherwise turn it the color of an old leather shoe.

I can't honestly believe that this is what passes for news these days. But I say that all the time so this should be nothing new. First of all, I disagree with this article entirely as liberal propaganda. The first paragraphs paint an entirely different picture than the way this should have been "pitched" as an easy news story but this was front-page-center of the Denver Post this morning. Luckily, I had the time to chill in Starbucks this morning for about 40 minutes before I had to go to work.

To be completely fair, would you buy meat that looked like shoe leather, whether or not it was edible? Also, who are we to challenge what the FDA says is "acceptable" and if we can challenge it with gas in beef packaging, why can't we challenge it everywhere? I don't even understand why people even want to discuss this and why the people that invoked this article don't just shop at Wild Oats instead. Or be vegetarians.

If you actually read the article, the ending isn't nearly as ridiculous as the beginning but if you're just glancing at the beginning you'll (hopefully) become just as enraged as I did, which is why I read the entire article. Give me a break, people, you're complaining about an injection of gas that will not, in any way shape or form, harm you in this instance, but will entice you to buy the product that you should be buying. You can't tell me there's fault in making sure people buy a product that is edible instead of allowing them to pass it up as inedible just for the color. If meat started going "bad" and not being bought, the article is right, the prices would go up, and then we might as well all shop at Wild Oats anyway, right?

I so don't think so...

The other day I scanned this at Wired -

Blogging Is So Punk Rock
"Right now the blog world has the feel of the punk rock scene in the late '70s, and for much the same reasons. The music business in the '70s had become disconnected from its audience. Record execs, busy getting Rolexes from REO Speedwagon, were horrified at kids paying $3 to see the Clash play a benefit for Marxist youth. Punk rock became a beacon for creative people of all walks. We thought that energetic counterculture would last forever, but it didn't. So enjoy the blogs while you can."

There are two things I have to say to this. The first is that the punk ideal is still alive. It is harder to find, the edge is nearer the end, but there is still an energy pushing against the strands of convention. The second thing I have to say is that Blogs will not die. I wrote the other night on the Denver Metblog that blogs are still figuring out how to change the world, and how to do something different. There are those that will be analogized with Green Day (Gawker media being a prime example) for their mainstream turn and supposed abandonment of the punk/blog ideal of independence. But there are those that will do something that no others have tried. On this point I cite this very site, we are doing a community, something that seems to more belong at a forum or something like Urbis instead of a blog format. But we've got something here that underscores the flexibility of this media. Blogs have pushed the edge out further, but they have in no way eliminated it.

- Gabe

Week Ten - Project Nine: Let the discrepancy begin!

Allrighty then! Thanks to everyone who jumped in for the add-along. I think next time I'll pay more attention to the originator of the idea. Todd said that we'd need to commit to an order and I see now that it might have worked better that way.

This weeks project?
Find a story, news article, journal, book, blog, song, political figure, anything.
Link to it, and then tell us why you disagree with them.
Research is good, but if you just wanna shoot it off the cuff that's cool too.
Just make us think that you believe what you're saying.
Ready ... Set ... Disagree!

And Now For Something Compleatly Different

Hokay so. This site is a place to put up anything that is writing related, so i am putting up something that is writing related. This is an 'intro' to a story i have been working on for about 10+ years now and i thought that i should share this little snippit with all of you. This story will probably never be finished in my life time but I like to think that some day this will be my masterpeice.

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Bear Truth

It was a dark moonless night as Nick ran blindly through the trees. He was being hit by branch after branch in this maze of endless trees not knowing his pursuer was closing fast. His foot caught a low branch and it sent him rolling down a hill that earlier he had struggled to climb. As he came to his feet he could hear the sound of something coming toward him trying to run he noticed that the fall had left a deep gash in his thigh. He limped toward a clearing ahead of him hoping that he could make it to his truck but as he entered the clearing his pursuer had caught up to him.

Nick turned to see a hellish looking beast peering over the trees, parting them like one would look through curtains. The size of this beast alone would cause the bravest man past or present tremble in fear. Its claws were like that of grisly and its head was unlike any beast that he had ever seen. Nick moved as fast as he could to get to his truck, and as he entered it there was a jerk as if the truck was being lifted off the ground. He turned just in time to see the tail end of the truck ripped away. In front of Nick was the face of the giant grotesque beast. Its fangs were stained pink from a fresh kill and its breath smelled like rotting meat.

Nick opened the door and noticed that he was at least 15 feet off the ground. With a jerk of the vehicle he fell to the ground. The beast let out a blood-curtailing roar. Nick tried to escape but the fall broke several bones, making moving very difficult. With out warning the truck fell to the ground trapping Nick beneath it.

Run with it, this is your time!

An anonymous Thinker has been overheard saying that the Add-along was taken in an 'undesirable direction'. I have to say that I find that lacking. This is a take it where you want it kind of thing, if you don't like where I took it, and where Karina took mine, and where Steve took hers, then just 180 and do your own thing.

That's what it's all about, your two cents.