The Shape of Things to Have Come and Gone

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This page started as an acknowledgement that some topics which were finding the light of the internet through the blog really didn't belong on a blog about Carbondale music and the DNA Vibrator. Topics like abortion, gas prices, electric rates, etc., didn't belong. If it was music related, then it was fine. but, DNA can't predict ahead of time what words will flow into the net, so the solution was to create a new page for "other" writings the emanated from DNA. Here is the first, culled from the blog, cleaned up and presented to you:

Go to any of the individual rants:

6/9/07: Dropping The A-Bomb! 7/3/07: Numero Uno 7/12/07: Why Rock Idioms Make Rock Stars Sound Like Idiots 8/1/07: One Simple Rule (from the blog post of 10/11/06) 8/28/07: Land of the Obese, and the Home of the Depraved 9/9/07: Democracy At Work... 11/7/07: Plagiarism...And Other Crimes

Dropping the A-Bomb! By The DNA Vibrator (extracted from its website: www.the-dna-vibrator.com)

DNA has threatened to write about politically, socially, religiously, and culturally charged issues for some time in its blog. The problem with this kind of writing is that for most of the issues, other people have weighed in more eloquently than DNA possibly can, because they have had the time, resources, intelligence, personal connection, and/or distance to present sound and rational arguments. The problem is also that just as many wingnuts with axes to grind and passionate, illogical, unreasonable arguments shout louder than the rest of us, and make entering a debate not particularly attractive.

So, while the nation of sheep graze, loudmouthed and weakwilled politicians set policy, and despite the best intentions of voices of reason, *modest proposals* are ignored and lessons of our past are forgotten, unlearned, and/or repeated.

When we get to big issues like abortion, it seems to DNA that the best way to distill its position on this issue is to ask and answer a series of defining questions that will help clear the moral battleground. Along the way, DNA will attempt to expose bullshit and myths perpetuated by both sides of the argument, discuss those points, if it can find any that make sense. DNA will attempt to do this without pandering to any cause, except its own.

This will be a voyage of discovery, because at the time DNA began this writing, DNA had not decided its position on the issue---of course now, at the time you are reading this, it has decided. But you will have to read to the end, or, you could skip to the end, [sigh] to find out. DNA thought it was decided, years ago, but has thought about many, many unresolved questions that keep popping up. So, right or wrong, whether it fits DNA’s decidedly selfish and leftist bent, DNA will try to come up with the best answer it can for itself.

This sounds awfully serious, so right about now, we should all shout, “ratfuck!” Don’t let the gravity of the issue weigh you down, Einstein. That’s the problem with most people who start to discuss these kinds of issues. They get bogged down in dogma or politics, or get pissed off because they felt that somebody was calling them ignorant, so they put up walls which have as their only function to stop logic and reason at the gates of the debate. So, Gorbachev, let’s start by tearing down this wall!

In this debate, do not believe what you find on the internet, in books, or from some expert, this writing included. If you do a search on Google for “abortion,” you will get about 158,000,000 hits. Go read them all, DNA will wait. Okay, back? The first hits look they are from sites designed simply to give information, but within the first few sentences, you come to realize that they have a very specific slant. Most sites you look at might be called something like, “The Abortion Information Clearinghouse,” which about 2 pages in you realize is sponsored by the “Christian Coalition for Protection of Life which Begins at Conception.” In other words, not only are the sites deceptive in their design and purpose, these deceivers are supposed to be pious people, following, you hope, a moral compass set by God. In short, they should be more virtuous than you, but are clearly not above trying to deceive you or make you feel guilty. DNA doubts that God told them it would be okay to lie if it scares the crap out of a confused, scared, and pregnant 13-year old. So, let’s lose the scare tactics and dogma, please.

To set the stage, there is certain terminology which must be changed, because the terminology and the context in which the terms are used poorly frame the current debate. That is, the terminology does not accurately reflect what the terms really mean.

Pro-Life: There are tons of links and articles out there that talk about the way that this term fails. People who use this term to describe their position would consider that being a person begins at conception, and that from that moment on, all of the rights, legal, moral, and ethical, are inherent because a fertilized egg is a human being. However, calling yourself pro-life would seem to cover a lot of ground. Pro-life people should be anti-death penalty, pro-gun control, and anti-tobacco activists, since the death penalty threatens life directly, and since guns and tobacco are also rampant and direct causes of death. Yet, there is no greater disparity in point of view among pro-life people. Overwhelmingly, they are the same people who support the death penalty, and are against regulating or banning guns and tobacco. Apparently, the sanctity of life loses some of its appeal once that human being grows up a little. As a close friend of DNA has said, “these folks aren’t pro-life, they are just pro-birth.”

Pro-Choice: Please. There are fewer articles that discuss the inherent weakness of this term, but the weakness exists, too. Pro-Choice people tend to believe that being a person begins sometime after conception, and some think rights for a fetus do not begin until it is born. Pro-choice supporters don’t really support all reproductive choices open to a woman. They are fixated on and determined to defend the choice to end a pregnancy. If they were pro-choice, they would spend equal amounts of time discussing every option available to a woman who is considering abortion, but pro-choice supporters fight this requirement in some states as being a strong-arm tactic by their conservative enemies (which, unfortunately, it sometimes is). For every dollar that the Pro-Choice camp spends on abortion education, they should also spend on education about the joys of motherhood, and, on every other form of birth control, abortion, and parenthood. Determining when a fetus becomes a baby, (from a religious point of view, when it is ensouled, or from a biological point of view, when it is viable, or from a societal and governmental point of view, when it is a citizen) is a hard to define slope that Pro-Choice supporters find themselves on. Instead of recognizing this, most supporters unquestioningly follow the Roe V. Wade banner as dogmatically as their counterparts follow theirs.

So, what do we do? DNA intends to use more direct, and frankly, better language to describe the opposing points of view. Pro-Life is now Pro-Birth. Pro-Choice is now Pro-Abortion.

DNA will now summarize the major planks in the Pro-Birth and Pro-Abortion camps. Then, DNA will take more time to discuss each of the splinters one can get when shuffling your feet along these planks.

A stereotypical Pro-Birth person is against abortion for almost any reason, including safeguarding a mother’s health. He is also against sex education, except for teaching abstinence to horny teenagers. He is religiously and politically conservative. He typically does not support social programs which teach birth control methods or supply birth control options. He does not support the use of birth control methods which prevent conception, or drugs which can halt the process of conception or implantation within 24 to 48 hours of having sex. He does not support social programs to help provide for the health and welfare of children born to people experiencing economic hardships. He does not vote to fund Child and Family Services departments in his state. This same person often “blames” a promiscuous mother, or the unwed mother, or the minority group Pro-Birth supporters assume that the mother must be representative of, for the mother and child’s state of affairs. As stated earlier, he supports the death penalty. In general, he is against governmental meddling in his life, particularly in cases in which his civil liberties are threatened.

A stereotypical Pro-Abortion person follows the language of Roe V. Wade to the letter, and believes that abortion is protected under the 14th amendment to the constitution, and is a matter of privacy and a woman’s right to control her own reproductive destiny. They generally feel that the standard to govern when an abortion can take place is linked to the viability of the pregnancy. However, they also believe that if the health of the mother is in jeopardy, that an abortion up to the moment of delivery is acceptable. They believe that sex education stressing contraceptive use, and safe sex practices should be taught in school. They support the use of “morning after” pills and other devices or medicines which will prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. They tend to support social programs to support single moms, indigent families, the poor, etc. They tend to see that groups of people have been victimized by the system in place, which locks them in a cycle of economic hardship. They don’t support the death penalty, and generally feel rehabilitation is preferable to incarceration. When it comes to safeguarding the public health, they believe it is the government’s obligation and requirement to protect us from ourselves, and to regulate a variety of processes and activities.

Stereotypical? Yes, but for the purpose of debate, representative of the worst and best from each position. For most points, there is a corollary which in some instance invalidates the point. This proof that DNA will construct only works when the subjects of said arguments are polarized. If, on an issue, you can only be either 100% right or 100% wrong, then from a rhetorician’s point of view, this job is easy. You don’t have to prove your argument, or disprove theirs 100%. All you have to do is find one element of their argument that does not make sense. Once one element does not make sense, then ta-daa, their whole argument must be false, since the premise they operate under is that decisions about things like abortion are all or nothing affairs.

Let’s start by a point by point dismantling of both sides. This is fun, like surgery with chainsaws!

PRO-BIRTH:

1. Being a person begins at conception. Corollary: Prove it. Oh, wait, you can’t. It’s a supposition based on the idea that God imbues a soul in a being at that moment. Interestingly, the time at which God is supposed to imbue a being with a soul has changed over the years. It used to be at the moment when breath is taken---Adam was formed from clay until God breathed life into him. Early on, being alive was directly related to blood, hence its significance in most rituals, and it wasn’t until this fluid of life was formed in a fetus that the fetus was considered human. Biblically, the concept of when life begins has changed based on the era in which a person lived. So, the bigger question here might be, what constitutes being a person? Having life? Lots of non-person things have life---an individual blood cell, a skin cell, etc. In fact, sperm and egg might be considered to NOT be alive, but only have the potential for life. After all, each are incomplete, and do not replicate like other cells in the body to grow. After conception, when the two cells combine, then “regular” cell division begins. At that point, one could call the cells “alive,” but does that constitute a separate being? From the religious perspective, if person-hood begins at conception, and it is known that many, many fetuses at early stages of development end in early term spontaneous (natural) abortions, then purgatory must be filled to the rafters with millions upon millions of beings who spontaneously aborted over the years without moms even knowing it! You would think God would have a better plan than condemning untold millions of 4 or 8 celled blastulas to an eternity of limbo because they were spontaneously, naturally aborted. Another question: What if a fetus developed with no brain? Nothing but the primitive brain stem functions, breathing, heartbeat, etc.? This fetus goes full term, this baby is born, but there is no higher cognitive function. Would God enslave a soul in a shell like that? Some would say yes. DNA thinks most reasonable people, even most religious people, would say that the soul is linked to a sense of a person as an individual being. DNA has a hard time believing that this level of cognition begins at conception.

2. Resolve the Pro-Birth, Pro-Death Penalty dichotomy that so many Pro-Birth people have. You can’t. If you respect the sanctity of life, then that sanctity must be preserved from natural conception to natural death. For those that don’t do that, the argument would have to be that some level of innocence, an innocence scale, if you will, is tipped toward a baby at conception, and then as the baby fucks up through life, tips away. In actuality, according to Christian beliefs, the opposite should be true: a baby is conceived in original sin, and only when the person accepts Jesus as his personal savior is his soul redeemed. Until then, no matter how pious a person is, the person’s soul is still in the possession of Satan. So, following this logic, it is less morally reprehensible to kill an unbaptized baby, than to kill a redeemed mass murderer. This is why Pro-Birth-pro-death penalty position is so conflicted. Pro-Birth supporters feel it is morally reprehensible to abort a fetus, but some clearly have no compunction about killing doctors.

3. Many Pro-Birth supporters do not support the idea of abortion even in the case that bringing a pregnancy to term will threaten the mother’s health, or will result in a baby with virtually no chance of living once born. Again, this position artificially raises the value of the baby, simply because it is “innocent,” over the welfare of the mother, because, DNA guesses the logic goes, “the mother should have known better than to put herself in this position.” Because the mother had a choice (of course, in some cases, she was raped, and didn’t have a choice) her life is now forfeit. This makes no sense.

4. Pro-Birth people are against sex education, except for abstinence. Of course, this policy has worked well for generations. No one had unprotected sex as teenagers before the liberal media got to them. DNA doesn’t mean to be flip, but come on.

5. Acceptable birth control: abstinence, or the rhythm method. Little do practioners know, that God cares not what we call it, the rhythm method is simply another form of barrier birth control, except, instead of the barrier being a prophylactic, or an iud, or a hormone, it is time. When people try to outsmart God, by timing when they screw so that their eggs and sperm are WASTED, and don’t stand a rat’s ass chance of being fertilized, why, that’s no different than masturbating, and God is clear, that masturbating and wasting your reproductive potential ain’t cool. Do “pious” people really think the rhythm method fools God? God sure must be dumb. Or, perhaps, we are. Either all or no forms of birth control are acceptable. There is no middle ground. God knows your intentions. One of God’s commandments was to be fruitful and multiply. We did. Now, we can wither on the vine a little. As a side note: A government-funded study just recently showed that there was no difference in the rate of pre-marital sex among those students taught a curriculum of abstinence and those taught safe sex practices. Which group do you want your kid in?

6. Pro-Birth folks are typically against social programs to support moms who need help with their babies, and are also against governmental meddling in people’s affairs. This is the main reason why DNA calls them “Pro-Birth.” They’ll bomb abortion clinics and lobby congress and spend millions to overturn abortion law, but are not interested in funding social and governmental support programs for the CHILDREN that these babies grow into. “That’s not my problem. I had it tough when I grew up, but I worked hard, and it paid off. She can do the same.” Right. Poor minority single mom, can’t get a loan for school, can’t afford health care, and is discriminated against racially, socially, and morally, she got it hard like YOU did. Give it a rest. Pro-Birth people are against governmental meddling in their own affairs, but have no problem attempting to legislate their morality onto someone else. How many of them, DNA wonders, have their own dirty little secrets, locked in closets, hidden by the “vacation” that their daughter took to her aunt’s house in the city over the summer she turned 13? Why is it that so many of the cases of incest, rape, divorce, and back alley abortions come right out of the Bible belt? Is that the smell of hypocrisy cooking?

Alright now, before you PRO-BIRTH prophets start leveling your shotguns, let’s tear up PRO-ABORTION:

1. A woman’s right to choose her reproductive destiny is protected under the 14th Amendment of the constitution, so says Roe V. Wade. Well then, what about a man’s reproductive rights? Seriously. If a woman receives special consideration simply because she is the vessel for the child’s growth, then under the constitution, a man’s civil rights are potentially being denied too. Here’s an example. Man and woman have sex. A sperm and egg unite. 9 weeks later, the woman takes a pregnancy test. She is pregnant. She decides to have an abortion. However, the man’s property, the sperm, supplied ½ of the potential for life there, and as such, his claim to the potential life developing is equally valid. She may be carrying the luggage, but perhaps, he paid for dinner. Meaning, she might be performing the labor in the partnership, but he is providing the capital. Under law, a man should have a claim here too. I am surprised we haven’t seen this challenge to Roe V. Wade yet (maybe we have, DNA just hasn’t done the research).

Next point: the 14th amendment is pretty shallow legal territory to base the argument that a woman’s reproductive capability, particularly terminating a growing fetus, which is only part hers, is hers to do with what she wills. Read the 14th amendment. You’ll see what DNA means. DNA has a feeling that we will see this ruling overturned, and law will revert to how it was before the ruling, in which states would form their own laws governing the practice of abortion.

2. The standard to govern when an abortion can take place is linked to the viability of the pregnancy. Well, that is a slippery slope. 20 years ago, a baby born at 28 weeks had a low chance of survival. Today, a baby has been born at 22 weeks and lived. Does this mean that 20 years ago, simply because technology had not advanced enough yet, that a baby born at 28 weeks was less of a baby than a baby born at 28 weeks today? Of course not. Viability is an unsound criterion. We can expect that there will be a time in the future that a fetus may be supported outside of the womb at 20 weeks, or 16 weeks, or that artificial wombs, or surrogate wombs could keep a pregnancy viable at very early dates. What then? If viability is your standard, then you have effectively ruled out abortion at any time. Hooray! The advance of science means Pro-Birth supporters win.

3. There has to be an exception for abortion if the mother’s health is in jeopardy. The problem with this little line, which sounds reasonable enough, is that health has been very broadly defined, so much so that Pro-Abortion people use that “health” exception to allow just about anybody and anytime in a pregnancy to abort. There are too many incidences of the “health” issue being something that is not life threatening, but simply being life-altering, or life-inconveniencing. That kind of behavior by Pro-Abortion supporters undermines the necessity for real health exceptions.

4. If Pro-Abortion supporters were truly Pro-Choice, they would recognize that abortion must be considered a last resort option, not the “I can’t have a baby! I won’t be able to fit in my prom dress” option. And that any option that does not involve surgery, any option which does not involve the moral dilemma of potentially becoming a baby murderer (if you believe the whole baby ensouled at conception thing), any option that demands that a person must behave responsibly sexually, those options should be given more priority than abortion. But, that is not the case for Pro-Abortion people. This is why, eventually, their position will fail. They are not pro-choice. And nobody likes liars.

5. Generally, Pro-Abortion supporters do not support the death penalty. Again, like with PRO-Birth people, the dichotomy defies logic. It’s okay to kill a baby, but a murderer should be given a chance for rehabilitation. The corollary here is that killers are made into killers by society, so society has an obligation to them. It’s not their fault they were bad. In fact, if they had been aborted, and not subjected to horrible alcoholic parents and too much Fred Durst and Brittney Spears, they never would have been so miserable to begin with. So, since as a society, we missed the boat when the dingy was still in the harbor, we can’t just sink the ship now. That wouldn’t be fair. Another example of how the left equates “fair” with “right.” Completely insane.

6. The government has an obligation to protect us. From tobacco, from big business, from pesticide companies, from unscrupulous businesses which ruin our environment, and even from ourselves. We have seat belt laws, and motorcycle helmet laws. Yet, make one argument that this obligation of the government might extend to protect a potential baby, and watch out. That tree-hugging, granola eating, sandal and patuli wearing hippie chick is likely to take the government’s hand (normally they are happy for a government hand-out) off at the shoulder. Isn’t extending legal protections to an unborn child a reasonable extension of social programs that most Pro-Abortion supporters rally behind? Yes.

THE VERDICT?

Both sides argue from untenable positions. Neither side follows the logical conclusions of their various arguments, and when most of the planks of their platforms are examined, the holes left make up more of the platform than the planks do. Both positions are filled with logical flaws, both take hypocritical stands. But surely, there has to be a “right" and a “wrong” on an issue like this. You ain’t gonna punk out on us, are you DNA?

No.

But before DNA comes to its conclusion, let’s hear what both sides get right: A Pro-Birth person is also for the sanctity of “traditional” social values, which include monogamous relationships to provide a stable home life for a baby. They help to really make people listen that there are consequences to sexual activity. Sexually-transmitted diseases, blood-borne diseases, these can and should scare a young person celibate, but also understanding that sex can sometimes lead to pregnancy, which complicates life exponentially, is probably the best way to teach young people to respect themselves and their procreative power. They do support religious and other cultural institutions which can be extremely supportive of the family, and offer moral and religious guidance and support. They support abortion alternatives like carrying a baby to term and giving a baby up for adoption. The Pro-Abortion person is driven by an overriding sense of social justice. The Pro-Abortion person is out to safeguard your rights, by not allowing the government to step in and prohibit decisions repugnant to his own moral code, based on another person’s interpretation of a different moral code or religion. The Pro-Abortion person tends to favor an individual’s rights over societal rights.

Those points are valid, and useful for us as a culture to support. So, how will DNA come to a conclusion about what position to support? Through a little thought experiment, and some life experience.

If a baby was born today, healthy and strong, would it have been okay for the mother to terminate the pregnancy yesterday? Almost everyone would say no, it would not be alright. Well, then what about two days ago? 10 days ago? A month ago? 8 weeks back? 12 weeks ago? At 12 weeks back, if the baby were spontaneously born, it would likely survive. Then, what about 16 weeks? Now we are getting into the time frame of current medical viability. At this point, the fetus, if spontaneously birthed, would probably not survive, nor would a doctor order the baby to be resuscitated. But for the vast majority that die 16 weeks premature, there have been a few that have survived. So medical viability could possibly be pushed back a little further, but most doctors would argue that anything before week 21 of development would just not be possible, because the lungs have not developed, and lungs need the womb to cook in. There is no substitute.

You can see what argument is swaying DNA, the viability argument. What if tomorrow, a scientist discovers a new method of premature infant care because of improving technologies, improving understanding of how babies develop, or drugs, or whatever the reason, and pushes viability back weeks, or even to the beginnings of development? At no time in the evolution of medical science did the baby change. Only our understanding of it and our ability to keep it alive changed.

Here's the life experience part: Once you are a parent, often your views about abortion change, or become less abstract. Once you have the awesome, terrifying, and wonderful responsibility of totally screwing up a child yourself, then whether or not abortion is right or wrong means a lot less to you, because you love your child. DNA's wife has said, "I support a woman's right to choose, but it's not a choice I would make."

Since our understanding of when a fetus becomes a human being is subjective, since our understanding of what constitutes it as a separate being seems arbitrary, then DNA has no choice but to accept that because our understanding of what constitutes life is incomplete, arbitrary, and based on the limits of science which may change tomorrow, then abortion, as the practice is currently carried out, must be morally suspect. The logical choice would be for abortion to only be carried out in cases in which death is likely for the mother, and/or inevitable for the fetus, if abortion is not carried out. But, we can’t expect our mothers to accept this extreme risk to themselves unless society is willing to provide cradle to grave support for mothers and babies who need it, to provide social networks and programs for adoptions for all babies who mothers want to give up for adoption, to provide free and varied contraceptives to all who want them, to teach people safe sex practices, to create a positive culture for women so that they don’t equate their power only with their sexuality…you see where DNA is going with this, too, DNA hopes. Even though abortion as a “choice” is based on arbitrary criteria, since we don’t have the proper support mechanisms in place for our people who feel driven to get abortions, then we are stuck with it. It is as morally suspect to force someone who is ill-equipped to raise a child as it is to abort a pregnancy. It really is. DNA looked at God’s sin measuring stick, and the sin of pride is just as bad as the sin of murder. In short, we’re fucked.

What do you think?

As always, your comments are welcome. Please type in Last Unturned and the topic in your response.

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Numero Uno

DNA saw several ads for special events recently. One was on TV. It said that a special event, on 7/7/07, was not to be missed. The tag line was something like, “Mark your calendar---7/7/07 happens only once this century!” Technically, that is accurate. Technically, a person wouldn’t see the date 7/7/07 on a new calendar after 2007 until the year 2107. Yes, that is true. But, prepare to be underwhelmed, that is true for every date on the calendar. You won’t 1/23/06 again until, oh, DNA doesn’t know, January 23rd, 2106. Same is true for every fucking date on the calendar.

Of course, you already really knew that. In your mind, where you actually think about ignorant shit people say, you knew that. But there are some, more than we would care to admit, who either don’t know that, or choose to ascribe a greater significance to a day simply because the arbitrary standard we developed by which to count will have at different times, some repeating numbers.

Things that repeat fascinate us. Regular repeating intervals just aren’t natural (except for, oh DNA doesn't know, quartz crystal vibrations, planetary rotations and revolutions, migrations, cyclic weather patterns, sunspots, pulsar periods, the structure of matter and the shapes it forms, from the subatomic to the pan galactic---oh, yeah, DNA guesses almost everything repeats that exists in the universe, actually). Regardless of annoying facts like that, those people think that there has to some special significance 7/7/07, because it repeated. We all know that the chance of that date happening on a calendar is, like, well, really small, so small it gots to have some special meaning. What’s my horoscope today? DNA better play the lottery on 7/7/07. DNA ain’t gonna make no rash decisions on 7/7/07. That’s for sure.

So, this date….no, that’s not right. The arbitrary way in which we refer to this date, (better) only occurs once a century, and will only occur in the first nine centuries of each millennium, means…..wait for it…..DICK. And it is even less meaningful when we acknowledge that 7/7/07 is just shorthand for 7/7/2007, and 7/7/2007 won’t occur so infrequently as only once a century for the first nine centuries of each millennium. It’s even more special than that. As a notation, it occurs just once. EVER. Never again. It does not repeat. The same is true for every day. That’s pretty fucking special. That’s so special, it’s as special as every other single number there is. You know, like on a number line…one integer after another…never repeating……

Earth to all the fucked up amateur numerologists who would rather project your problems onto a universe which aligns itself to your misery or delight based on your way of reading a calendar, instead of accepting a little personal responsibility for your fucked-up state of affairs: YOU’RE WRONG. There is just no nice way of saying it.

The trouble is, if enough people believe that something will happen on that day, then even if it doesn't happen, they will think it happened. Every conspiracy theory you have ever read, from the Knights Templar to the World Trade Center’s destruction, only continue to exist predicated on the annoying habit of humans to ascribe meaning to things that don’t normally have that meaning, or shouldn’t have, based only on the physics of the object or event.

Case in point: A friend of mine and DNA were walking in the woods. A snake crossed our path. When DNA looked at it, he saw a hog-nosed snake. When my friend looked at it, he saw evil. The hog-nosed snake went through its routine to attempt to ward off a predator (they are harmless), and DNA grabbed it. When DNA offered it to my friend to pet, the friend said that he would not touch the snake, because it was evil. DNA asked how he could tell the snake was evil. The friend said that the serpent was the form that Satan took in the Bible, so of all the creatures in the world, it was cursed. DNA saw a snake. He saw evil.

Given the above described state of affairs, DNA is surprised when he hears conservative commentators refer to our “liberal” society as a godless society. Belief in God takes faith, and we have an overabundance of faith. We have so much faith that people are willing to invest their belief in the special-ness of a series of numbers, simply because they repeat. People may read this and think, “C’mon, DNA, this is kind of a pointless rant, isn’t it? Who cares whether or not Jethro believes there is something special about 7/7/07?” You know, you are probably right.

7/7/07…..666….the Mayan calendar predicting “the end of the world?” No difference, right? Just a series of numbers. How much damage can a small bunch of ignorant people cause just because they invested their belief in a number?

As always, your comments are welcome. Please type in Last Unturned and the topic in your response.

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Don't Put This Blog Up On No Shelf...

Why Rock Idioms Make Rock Stars Sound Like Idiots

Since this rant has something to do with music, it will appear in both the blog and the rants section of the website. Cross-categorical analysis, how fucking bitching is The DNA Vibrator, after all? Quite, it appears. Bitchin'? Yes, he's an antiquated old fuck, isn't he?

There are many words that have made it into the rock lexicon, mostly as euphemisms for fucking or sex. From the obvious to the sublime, rock and roll has pretty much always been about sex. Because most conservative Christian elements of the time (and now) confuse sex and desire for physical pleasures as equivalent to satanic temptation, that is, doing EVIL, rock and roll was considered EVIL, the devil’s music. Of course, everyone knows the devil’s music by definition would be music with no soul, and today, that would have to be Taylor Hicks. Sorry Taylor. That’s not a cheap shot, it’s true. He’s the latest musical antichrist, following in the hoofprints of psychotic geniuses like John Tesh, Michael Bolton, and Hell’s own keyboardist, Yanni.

DNA believes that the key thing that separates rock and roll from other types of music, is specifically its subject matter. This is why DNA finds Christian rock, well, funny. It is also why so many word or phrases that simply are not used in everyday speech find their way commonly into rock songs. From its inception, rock and roll songs were made to talk about something (sex) that couldn’t be talked about, so euphemisms, double-entendre, and a separate lexicon has been built around this music.

This double-speak has amused and bothered DNA for some time. It’s an idiosyncrasy of the medium that we simply accept, and anytime that occurs, we frankly should question why we accept it. Maybe there is a good reason for it, maybe not. Many years ago, DNA wrote a song about it, called “Cindy.” In the song, DNA poses as some frat boy king of the jungle who brags about sexual “conquests,” and talks offhandedly about how he fucked Cindy Crawford. This right off the bat shows how long ago the song was written. Any 20 something today would say, “Who?” and the obvious idiocy of the premise of the song is kind of lost if you don't know Cindy Crawford. But, DNA did his best to club listeners over the head with the obvious stupidity. “Is it better to lie about it, whose gentle ears am I protecting, if I say ‘making love’ instead of fucking, if fucking is what I mean?” Then DNA goes on to say, “I didn’t fill Cindy’s void, love potion number 9 was not employed, I didn’t give her an afternoon delight, or rock her fucking world all night. What I did was more direct, no metaphoric plugs or sockets to connect, no slots or tabs to insert---what do you think I am, some kind of pervert?” The laundry list of obfuscating, or clever, or attempting to be clever, phrases is endless. Aren’t you tired of it? Fuck, DNA was/is!

Well, believe it or not, this rant is not about sexual innuendo in rock songs, since DNA already covered that topic. It really is about idiosyncrasies of the idiom. Because it is too obvious to use double entendre to demonstrate how certain phrases in rock are found only in rock songs, DNA wants to focus on one phrase, and in particular one word, that really is only used in the way DNA will describe in the rock and roll vernacular. It is a strange word in that it is so common that the fact that it is used contextually very differently in rock and roll will become obvious to you once DNA says it. From Led Zepplin to AC/DC to Belle and Sebastian, this word has wormed its way into our consciousness and it just ain't quite right.

The word is “shelf.” Strange, huh? In rock and roll, when songwriters refer to a shelf, they usually write something like “don’t put my love up on no shelf,” or “leaving me up on a shelf,” or “she left my heart up on a shelf.” Very rarely do you get something like, “She put her books up on the shelf,” unless "books" is a metaphor for pussy or something. In the rock and roll idiom, someone pushed “shelf” to make an ingenious leap from being a place on which you might store or set something, to meaning a person being put in his or her place, or having a person’s feelings “put away” (discounted, forgotten) like dry goods in a pantry. The interesting thing is, despite minutes of research, DNA can’t find the song or link in which somebody makes this leap of meaning. There isn’t a song from the 1930’s in which Stump Leg Willie sings, “She cut out my heart, canned it with tomatoes and wrote one word on the label --- She put it on the shelf next to the beans, where you could read the word “love” if you’re eyes were able.”

Basically, “shelf" has become a metaphor that only finds purchase and plausibility in a rock and roll lyric. If you don’t believe DNA, then try this metaphor out when you are talking to someone. You won’t believe how abhorrent it is to say out of that context.

“So Randy, you gonna ask out Stacy?”

“No, Jeff. I’ve been through that before with her. She’ll just put my love up on a shelf.”

“What did you just say?”

“She really wouldn’t validate my feelings in a positive manner?”

“No, what you said first was 50 times gayer than that. What, were you in the Georgia Satellites after you quit high school?”

Get DNA’s point? There is no common usage for “shelf” as a place where hurt or unrequited feelings go, outside of rock. Why did this metaphor develop in the first place? Did someone need a good word to rhyme with “self?” That is DNA’s educated guess. If anyone has more information about this little word and its rock and roll heritage, please let DNA know.

Until then, remember, if you like a girl, do what Gene Simmons of KISS would do, and tell her that you want to put your log in her fireplace, or more subtlety, like Paul Stanley, that you want to eat it like a piece of cake. This is why rock and roll will never be considered more than pop art, thank God!

Don't put this weblink up on no shelf: DNA's Guestbook.

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The Energy and Entropy of an Underground Music Scene: One Simple Rule.

This was originally posted on 10/11/06, and as such is actually the first of the rants to appear in The Shape Of Things To Have Come And Gone. But, DNA had forgot about it until now (sheepishly---DNA was re-reading old blog posts for fun---yes, DNA is a sad, sad little man). So, here it is in its entirety.

Warning: This blog post is supposed to mean something. If you prefer not to have meaning with your blog reading, skip this entry. You’ll be glad you did.

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form. The second law of thermodynamics states that the potential energy in a system is always less then the initial energy in a system. According to The DNA Vibrator’s friends at Physical Geography dot net “Heat does not spontaneously move from a colder body to a hotter body. Natural processes that involve energy transfer must have one direction, and all natural processes are irreversible. This law also predicts that the entropy of an isolated system always increases with time. Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system.”

Understanding entropy is important when understanding any system, whether it is a planetary system, an environmental system, or a cultural system. All of the systems mentioned require a constant supply of energy from an outside source to continue to function at the artificially high level of order which is maintained by complex systems. Some systems are self-organizing, and maintain many complex features over time, but even these require regular infusions of energy. The ultimate outside source of energy is the sun. This is why earth has a complex biosphere. The sun supplies the fuel to all systems which organize in seeming contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.

A music scene is one of these complex, organized systems; a social structure which can only exist in a culture once all of the basic energy needs of a people are met. You will never hear how an ancient culture didn’t figure out how to provide food for its people, but man, they sure developed kick-ass tribal music, didn't they? Interestingly, as cultures rise and fall, and a music scene does arise as enough excess energy is available during the culture’s heyday for those creative types to express themselves, sometimes it is the music created then which will be preserved long after the culture fails. In this respect, music is like an entropy sink, a way for the creative potential of a culture to be stored even as the usable energy of that culture diminishes. Today is no different. An underground music scene is so far down on the cultural needs list, that it only happens when enough people with enough excess creative energy are willing to spend their energy capital on the scene. And if you wanted to break it down, the ability and freedom to pursue subversive music, the framework within a society which allows members of that society to express anti-establishment sentiment to the point where the expression itself unifies those expressing those views as an organized community, all of that excess energy, sound and fury signifying nothing, has as its source, the sun. We all do. Even The DNA Vibrator depends on an outside source of energy, though, over time, as the second law states, the level of entropy has grown and continues to grow within it. Its system is as old as the universe, and no longer functions as well as it once did.

The best part of this little philosophy lesson is that it should make you laugh the next time you see some goth chick pretending to be a vampire. She couldn’t do what she does without that little blob of hydrogen and helium 93 million miles away. “I hate this world!” the disenfranchised punk wench shouts, middle finger thrust defiantly at authority. “This world” of course does not include the cool microphone she is singing through, the amp her daddy bought for her through which her Les Paul shrieks, and well, the electricity that allows her tin-thin voice to be heard above the sound of the droning air conditioning, which of course, if that wasn’t working, means you wouldn’t catch her out in this fucking heat. In other words, most “underground” artists, audiences, and people in any “scene,” really, are only afforded the luxury of being able to participate because the juggernaut of this culture continues to mow down every motherfucker which gets in its path. We have excess energy. If we didn’t, do you think The DNA Vibrator would have the leisure to philosophize on the computer? Fuck no. The DNA Vibrator would be watching mutely as the tool of The DNA Vibrator was grabbing a shotgun from the wall, keeping another band of marauding bastards from stealing what little food the tool and his family were able to eke out of the forest by which they live. The DNA Vibrator believes that this culture is one bad weekend away from wholesale cannibalism. Don’t believe it? Read Jared Diamond’s books, “Guns, Germs, And Steel,” and “Collapse.” We exist on borrowed energy resources. Not that The DNA Vibrator is the Lorax, for fuck’s sake. At the most basic level, The DNA Vibrator is very interested in seeing the chaos which will ensue as the end result of the world’s current state of affairs. Its just that The DNA Vibrator has grown attached to this particular vehicle for it, and doesn’t want the tool to have to eat his neighbors or be eaten, as The DNA Vibrator’s friends Cypress Hill once said, “when the shit goes down.”

“When I was 20, hardcore music meant something. It wasn’t this corporate gutless crap that you dumbasses think is cool and subversive today.” Next time you hear some old farts looking back through the prism of entropy and waxing philosophic about the good old days, do both you and them a favor, and punch them right in their mouths. After all, they wasted all of your fucking energy. No wonder your music sucks. You have had to recycle all of their old crap. Who cares if you wouldn’t be here without them? That was yesterday’s problem.

Sometimes, a band, or a music scene, will take off, and will exist off of a seemingly endless supply of energy given to it by devoted fans. How else can you explain how Dylan or The Rolling Stones, once cultural compasses, now corporate shills, still pack stadiums? Sometimes, through exponential feedback, a band will rise meteorically. The spectacle of it is worth watching as a cultural phenomenon. It has happened before, with the Beatles, for example. Also, with bands like Metallica. These bands, at one time, were humming with so much extra energy, that catastrophic chain reactions occurred, in which they were consumed from within. Their collapses were fascinating, and governed by the same forces which described the fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of a drop of water from a blade of grass. The point The DNA Vibrator is making, it hopes, is that cultural phenomenons, like bands, music scenes, etc., follow the same laws of thermodynamics that any environmental system follows. If this is the case, then the simplest rule can be derived from which you can predict whether your band or music scene will thrive or fail. The DNA Vibrator knows what this simple rule is. Perhaps you can guess it. If you can, post a comment about it to The DNA Vibrator.

If you know the rule, tag DNA with the subject line: I figured out the rule, bitch.

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Land of the Obese, and the Home of the Depraved...

Today, DNA heard a statistic that frankly was disgusting. Thirty-one of the 50 states, that’s over 3/5 for you math whizzes, showed an increase, and some states, a sharp increase, in rates of obesity, and NO STATE, that is exactly less than one, showed a decline in rates of obesity. In other words, we are a nation of fat fucks getting fatter.

How is it that we are the most health crazed, the most body-image obsessed, have access to the best health care, have markets to deliver cheaply the best food in the world, and we also are among the most unhealthy, overweight, depressed, sick, and nutritionally poor people on the planet?

DNA could go into a very long-winded argument about how these things are linked, but it doesn’t have to. It is self-evident. What Americans do best is capitalism, and the hallmark of capitalism is to consume. We have been bred to believe that we deserve more, so we unashamedly take more. There comes a point at which consumption does not result in growth and vitality, but in growth and morbidity. Growth for growth’s sake never ends well.

Why isn’t Newfoundland the world leader in obese people? Why does it have to be the USA? How come the Chinese are so fucking skinny? Well, they’re still hungry, not necessarily in the physical sense, but because of that, their whole culture has been for centuries designed to conserve, socially, physically, emotionally. This is why the Chinese are having such a difficult time balancing their societal ideals with the runaway expansion they are currently experiencing.

Americans in general do not have that problem. American culture is bloated. American capitalism is bloated. Certain ideals, the whole Wall Street ‘take as much as you can while you can’ mentality stinks and has left our people bloated like a carcass in the August sun. Like the fatted calf, we are ripe for the slaughter. It is no wonder we are an obese nation. Our people mirror our culture. All peoples mirror their cultures.

It didn’t always used to be like this. There was a time, in my parent’s time, for example, in which they we felt connected to a greater good. Not religious, necessarily, not governmental, really, but we were united in a common cause. That cause was two world wars, kind of a suck-y way to become unified, but there is nothing like the threat of total annihilation by a totalitarian regime to get you all moving in the same direction. Maybe that explains the current antipathy around the world for all things American?

Unfortunately, the forces which led to this kind of unifying cultural power, also allowed and even encouraged individuals to amass great amounts of wealth and concentrated the control of what became the most vital of all resources, oil, nuclear technology, to name a couple, in the hands of a very few. It is no accident that families or individuals with strong ties to the companies which grew enormously because of the demand of certain resources in those wars have either been in the White House or close to White House since then.

This is no “conspiracy.” Nobody is hiding anything. The Bush family doesn’t hide that they are oilmen in the pockets of Saudis. Cheney doesn’t hide his strong ties to big energy.

Through a long period of cultural disillusionment, starting, really, with the bombs in Japan, the Cold War, détente politics, Korea (still a fucking mess 50 + years later), Viet Nam, a cultural revolution at home, all of these events of course are linked and predicated on one another. Through a long downward slide, as a people, though we are more connected, more entertained, more educated, and more stimulated than ever, we find we have less of a sense of community, less control, less enthusiasm for the institutions which our parents revered, and we have less interest in things that don’t directly affect us. Certain entities benefit from our cultural indifference. Big corporations, big institutions, big government, all benefit from individuals not asserting their rights, or their anger. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the current war. Are you going to do anything about it? Fuck no. Why? It doesn’t bother you. Not really. (DNA isn't proselytizing. DNA ain't doing anything about, either. Well, not exactly true: DNA did write a song about it.) So gas prices went up. What can you do about it? So nobody seems to care about conserving resources. Why is it that we only think about conservation when it is clear that we are heading for a horrible fall? Conservation don't matter if you still got the money to buy your gas. That's exactly what the Easter Islanders thought as they cut the last tree down. "Don't matter, as long as I get the boat we make out of it," (of course, that is a rough translation from the Polynesian.)

DNA isn’t blaming you or itself. Fuck it, let’s blame Canada.

No, the Canucks have got it right for the most part. How does this relate to obesity, you might be asking yourself about now. DNA, you’re sounding a little like Ted Kasinsky, you might say. No, not at all, DNA would reply. You see, we are obese in America, we eat, because we lack something. We don’t share the purpose we once had as a people. Everyone is jaded, to the point that we expect shit instead of excellence, we expect cancer instead of health, we expect hate instead of love, and because of that, because down deep, we have lost faith in something special to us as a people, we want fulfillment. Our society has replaced inner fulfillment, bought, sold, taken and given from us over the last three generations, with physical fulfillment: eating, fucking, coveting, hurting, dominating, buying, having, and spending. We are piloting a nation of emotionally stunted children, with no parents at the helm. Right now, we are in the midst of the food fight, so at times our obsessions seem almost funny. DNA can’t wait to see what happens when the food runs out. DNA has an idea what it might be like…people shooting each other in the face over a cantaloupe…packs of wolves running through small towns…rape and murder at will and at random…death, torture, suspension of all human rights, subjection by lawless gangs of thugs to injustice and vigilante tactics…average citizens arming themselves and killing children out of fear…just like what we are seeing now…somewhere else……

But, what if we found what it is we needed inside of ourselves? We had it, once. We could get it again. What if we had it August 28th, 2005? What if our leaders had the presence of mind to create a Louisiana Work Authority to call into service every able-bodied man who wanted to earn a good wage to rebuild the Gulf Coast? The cost? Less than what we have spent there already, and the benefit? A nation united---black, white, rich, and poor, large corporations and small businesses working together to rebuild the cities and fix the damage we and Mother Nature have done to the Gulf Coast wetlands. What if we had it September 11th, 2001? We almost did. That unifying moment was squandered by our government. The point is, a good leader, a strong leader, can help us regain that inner purpose which we have lost. If we regain our inner purpose, the substitutes we currently use to pacify our vague feelings of discontentment, will fall away, and no longer be necessary. We will no longer be a nation of health obsessed, sex and youth crazed, fat, depressed, perverted, decrepit fucks.

Then again, nothing is funnier than watching an ageing baby boomer attempt to recapture his youth with liposuction, a sports car, penis implants, a bowflex machine, Viagra, Rogaine, and a trophy wife. That is almost worth losing our cultural compass for.

So, you're fat. So is DNA. We're all part of the problem. And the solution. Come up with your solution here in the new guestbook. Tag it with "Land of the Obese..."

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Democracy At Work...

Today’s music is an example of democracy in action.

August marked an important milestone in music history. 25 years ago, in August, the compact disc was introduced to the world. This marked the beginning of a democratization process in music which is still occurring, and will continue to its ultimate end, hopefully. DNA wants to talk a little bit about that democratization process, because it is the result of this process which affords DNA the luxury of the music DNA makes today, and is responsible for many great changes in music which affect us all, and is responsible for YOU to have much greater power in the ways in which you enjoy the music you want to hear now, and will give you even more power and choice in the future.

Most of the history part of this article DNA attributes to a great article HERE on the BBC news web channel (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6950933.stm). Now that DNA is all properly attributed, please read on:

“In March 1979 Philips conducted a press conference to show off the audio quality of its CD system in production and also to impress upon rivals how well it was progressing. A week later, Philips traveled to Japan after the Japanese Ministry of Industry and Technology (MITI) had decided to convene a conference to discuss how the industry could create a standard for the audio disc. The company left Japan having agreed a deal with Sony. Philips' plan for a CD with an 11.5cm diameter had to be changed when Sony insisted that a disc must hold all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The longest recording of the symphony in record label Polygram's archive was 74 minutes and so the CD size was increased to 12cm diameter to accommodate the extra data. In 1980, Philips and Sony produced their Red Book, which laid down all the standards for compact discs. From that time on the companies worked separately on their own CD equipment but in the early days agreed to share components. In April 1982, Philips showed off a production CD player for the first time. US record labels were initially very skeptical about the CD. A year after launch there were 1,000 different titles available. In 1985 Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms became the first CD to sell more than one million copies. It is still the world's most successful CD album. In 2000 global sales of CD albums peaked at 2.455 billion. In 2006, that figure was down to 1.755 billion.”

The above paragraph is a succinct history of the CD medium. At the same time this technology was developing, another recording technology was in the midst of a revolution, too: home recording. What once could only be rented in high end recording studios, the kinds of studios that only big record labels could afford to outfit, was now finding its way through technology in the hands of folks in smaller studios and home studios. The quality of recording was good, and a wave of independent and smaller labels swelled throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Quality and affordability continued to rise while overall cost for equipment was steadily driven downward by near constant innovation. Today, an independent musician can produce a “studio” quality recording, from laying down initial tracks, mix-down, mastering, artwork, and duplication of product on one computer, for less money than a few hours of “studio” time would have cost 10 years ago (DNA is including the cost of a nice computer as the heart of the home recording studio in this comparison).

Both the development of CD technology and the development of home studio technology are examples of a democratization process at work. DNA doesn’t know if you caught it the first read through, but in the quoted paragraph, Philips and Sony AGREED to develop one standard, and several big companies AGREED to share technology. Did the lamb lay down with the lion? Did the Lorax come back? Where is this spirit of sharing now, as Blue Ray and HD are gearing up to lead consumer wallets up the altar?

Back then, it was in their interest to share technology, (News flash to Sony: it is in your best interest to set a standard and share technology this time too. On the other hand, they could have developed CD standards independently and slugged it out in the marketplace, and maintained exclusive rights. They could have agreed to some other kind of arrangement, and made it prohibitively difficult for others to experiment with the technology, but it so happened that what was good for them was also good for consumers. Perhaps someone at Philips understood that greater good and greater profits could actually coincide.

It didn’t take very long at all for home recording enthusiasts to understand the ramifications of the medium. Within a very short time of the launch of CD’s, the first recordable CD’s and recording machines were available. At first they were pricey, but very quickly, their price dropped, and their application became widespread. Price was no longer an object if you wanted to record your band.

However, the likelihood that your home recorded band would be picked up by a major label was low. The old system of A&R (Artists and Repertoire) guys ruled the process of finding and developing talent for record labels (the “old” method still rules the process, but is not the only means for bands to reach critical mass anymore). With the advent of less expensive ways to record and sound just as good as the big guys, lots of smaller guys struck out on their own. They followed essentially the same model as the big labels (not surprising---it was the only model they knew), finding and grooming talent, getting their artists played in heavy rotation, in hopes of selling the artist to a major label and making a shitload of money. And the major labels took notice. They did what they could afford to do: buy up the best talent, in front and behind the mixing board, and also buy the best labels. Then, they got the best of both worlds: The best new talent, at a fraction of the price, with much less money than they would have otherwise had to invest to get product. It was kind of like the minor leagues for the major labels, with indie labels becoming “farm” teams. At this point, the democratization process was slowed down somewhat, as big fish ate the smaller fish, but not for long. While recording media and devices were allowing more artists the opportunity to create, the internet gave independent artists the means to distribute product globally from their homes. There suddenly became a hell of a lot more fish in the sea.

The result of these three democratizing technologies, CD’s, digital home recording gear, and the internet, meant that anyone, and DNA means anyone, can produce music and get it distributed to a potential world audience. A band doesn’t need a label to launch their music across multiple platforms, nor do they need the PR machine or physical production plants that only big labels could provide to get their artists’ music heard. Those things help sell music, sure, but that is no longer the only measure of success. The democratizing principles which allows schmoes like DNA to record and distribute product also means that the business model which helps define success has changed dramatically since the days the A&R guys developed the talent for majors. DNA doesn’t need to sell 1000 CD’s to make a profit, or if DNA were on a major, more like 10,000 to cover costs, and 100,000 to insure your record deal isn’t scrapped before your tour even starts.

In order for DNA to cover all of the costs of recording, and DNA means ALL of the costs (the actual recording, mixing, artwork, product mastering, duplication, and a digital distribution deal), DNA needs to sell less than 100 CD’s. Actually, less than 50. More like less than 20. Unbelievable, but absolutely true.

It is no wonder that CD sales have dropped dramatically over the last few years. Digital media is in the process of revolutionizing the delivery of music. It is no wonder that record labels are scared of this change. This revolution marks the end of the need for a traditional record label for guys like you or DNA. Nobody likes staring extinction in the face. The fear of extinction is unfounded, however. Huge bands, worldwide bands, will still need the big label’s ability to coordinate big things. But the little guys can put their two cents in too, and have it actually count. What labels are afraid of losing, and what most labels have already lost, is their relevance.

How does this affect you? These changes mean that before you, on your computer, through dozens of services, are literally tens of thousands of bands across the globe that you can listen to. It no longer matters to you if an artist is on Capital Records. You can buy individual songs after you listen to them. A greater share than ever of the money you spend actually makes back to the artist, which in turn, means that the economy of scale is preserved, and the artist can continue to produce quality art at a much smaller critical mass, because so much more money is returned to the artist him or her self.

Here is an example: Today, you go online and buy “Well” by The DNA Vibrators (Hey, that’s a good idea. You should really do that). You pay .99 cents for that gem. Nine cents goes to the distributor. Anywhere from .10 to .30 cents goes to the online retailer. The rest goes to the artist. Compare this to a typical model at a big label. The artist doesn’t own his or her songs. The artist must first pay back any advance on the sale of the CD. Then, the artist gets a royalty of approximately .09 cents per song. That’s it. So, DNA makes approximately .80 cents per song, instead of .09 cents per song. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that DNA can sell a factor of 10 times less music and make the same amount as some artist on a major label. And if, by chance, DNA has a song which becomes popular, the money generated from that song won’t line the pockets of some exec at a record label. It will line DNA’s pockets, which is a much better deal, from DNA’s point of view. And, from your point of view too. The democratization process includes you, you see. You can buy anything you want. Doing so allows the artists you like to continue to make the music you like. You have a much more direct hand in the production of the art you enjoy. Your dollar goes much further now than ever before in “voting” for what you want to hear and continue to hear, and, it is much more likely that the dollar you spend will actually go back into the artistic process. Since DNA has been reading a little Thomas Kuhn, DNA knows it is under the influence of this philosopher. Still, in this essay, it is appropriate to borrow his terminology (in fact, it is probably the reading of Thomas Kuhn which directed DNA’s train of thought): We stand witness to a paradigm shift, a revolution, which will bury antiquated labels in an avalanche of choice. Do all of us a favor: Go surf right now, and buy three songs from artists you have never heard of. This is the best of democracy at work.

Tune in sometime soon for the next rant: the worst of democracy at work!

Tell DNA what songs you bought here in the new guestbook.

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Permanent Historical Record: 11/07/07

Plagiarism...And Other Crimes

For those of you who do not share an affinity with Carbondale, IL, or SIU, you might want to tune this blog post out. Unless, of course, you enjoy erudite exposition and thought-provoking analysis on exciting topics like intellectual property rights. Hello? Hello? Anybody there? For those of you still reading, SIU’s President, Glenn Poshard, is in some hot water, for plagiarizing a few times in his doctoral dissertation. Some are calling for his head, some are backing him all the way, and for lots of reasons, the issue doesn’t look like it is going away. So, DNA decided to weigh in on the subject, mainly because most of the crap that has been written about the topic has been, well, CRAP. So, printed in its entirety, with some small edits (like putting “DNA” instead of “I” in the places DNA refers to itself), here is our first installment of

Self-serving, Self-aggrandizing, Academic Snobfoppery Theater

Tonight’s episode: Plagiarism…And Other Capital Crimes

Most of you out there don’t care about the happenings at a small Midwestern university, unless that phrase was preceded by the words, “Dear Penthouse: I never thought this would happen to me. I attend a small Midwestern university....” But within the university community, these happenings whirl frenetically like a tornado fed by the spinning of its own tail/tale (take your pick).

DNA has been thinking about the issue of plagiarism in the hopes that DNA could distill this slurry he has been reading in the papers and on the internet into a shot of something with a little more, well, character. Kind of like the difference between drinking a slug of white lightning, compared to a nice draw of aged Kentucky bourbon. One will burn your nose hairs and cause you to see funny. The other uses your whole circulatory system as a filter for smoky sophistication. The problem is, DNA doesn’t think the current row about plagiarism is really about plagiarism.

Let’s assume, for a moment, that this debate is actually about plagiarism. DNA is purposely not going to define the term here. There are more definitions of plagiarism than there are instances of plagiarism in SIU system president Glenn Poshard’s dissertation. Rather, DNA wants to talk about what it is. From a student’s standpoint, it is the caged beast used by teachers, administrators, and institutions to inspire fear— whoops, DNA means, to instill the highest standards of integrity for the intellectual process in their students. From a teacher’s standpoint, it is a crime, the prosecution of which protects a teacher’s value on the open market— whoops, DNA means, protects their intellectual property. How plagiarism is defined is not so clear. Whether different activities constitute plagiarism, and whether the same penalties should be imposed for an act of plagiarism depending on your professional level (or lack of it) should be up for debate.

Students need and benefit from direct statements about plagiarism so that they understand clearly what is considered cheating and what is not. Students might plagiarize because they know less of what is common knowledge in a particular field; students might plagiarize because they are less familiar with the rules regarding the fair use of others’ works; students might plagiarize because a sufficient “weeding out” process is still occurring during the undergraduate years, and many students who actively cheat are only then getting caught in serious enough infractions; students might plagiarize because many of them aren’t particularly interested, invested, or driven to create their own work, or to do the research that allows them to find their own voices, et cetera. (DNA views this primarily as a failure of teachers to find the methods to inspire their students.) There are many reasons students might plagiarize, almost all of which, with the exception of unrepentant, continued, blatant cheating, should be accepted by teachers the way a parent accepts reasons for bad behavior from a child who is still learning how to do things: Negatively reinforce to extinguish a behavior, and positively reinforce to change the behavior. When this is done correctly, the negative reinforcement should not overshadow the positive reinforcement. Then, Professor Skinner rings a bell, and all the kids look out the window due to his semester’s long operant conditioning. DNA is not a behaviorist, but certainly, there are times when the model works.

If schools want to teach kids that plagiarism is bad, then instructors shouldn’t level the worst punishment (failing a class, being suspended or expelled) at students for the first, or second (or, gasp, maybe even the third) infraction of the rules or for an inadvertent infraction. Wouldn’t it be a more effective lesson about the value of intellectual and academic honesty to require a student who plagiarized to write a paper about a topic of their choosing, in which he had to present several drafts, submitted sequentially, all verified by the instructor, starting with a simple outline, which creates a clear and obvious trail of the student’s own intellectual work? Wouldn’t that be much more effective in producing a future scholar who appreciated the value of his own work instead of scaring the hell out of a kid who makes a mistake, or, God forbid, maybe several? But that approach involves actual hard work on the part of the instructor, and assumes an element of really caring about an individual student’s intellectual potential and growth. What was DNA thinking?

It is one thing to talk about plagiarism among students. What about plagiarism among professionals? Now we are getting into the meat and potatoes of this current, for lack of a better term, argument. Actually, there is a better term, it’s just longer: “Two sides shrieking back and forth, tossing polemic, pedantic barbs aimed at inciting anger, including few if any facts, all out of context, each claiming that the other side is ruining reputations of institutions or people, and that is why SIU now sucks,” or something to that effect. Before we dig into the professional plagiarism main course, let’s scarf down the appetizer, which in effect has spoiled our palate for public debate. The appetizer is composed of two ingredients: First take a large helping of “Don’t throw stones if you live in glass houses,” and vigorously combine with two scoops of “If you’re rich, powerful, or connected, I guess the rules don’t apply to you,” and stand back. The mixture rises on its own, puffs itself full of hot air, and will cause [ad] nauseam if tasted even once. Interestingly, both points of view spring from the same insecure, squirrelly bakery in our psyches: a fear of not being in control of our lives. One point of view basically asks, “Who are you to judge?” while the other asks, “Who are you to be above judgment?” Both rise from insular thinking and an external locus of control.

Plagiarism takes on a whole new meaning and importance when it is applied to the professional world. Then, as a concept, it is related directly to intellectual property and the value, the actual dollars-and-sense value that the property has. Plagiarism is theft, and as such, the process to penalize someone for plagiarism follows the same basic rules that govern the adjudication of any theft of property: The worse the violation, the worse the penalty. If the theft is bad enough, as a professional, you lose money, prestige, reputation, opportunities, your job, and maybe even your freedom. Wouldn’t it be stupid to exact the same toll for different levels and kinds of infractions? It’s the kind of intractable, inflexible thinking that you would least expect from faculty and administration at a university, but is exactly the kind of thinking we seem to be faced with at every turn. Perhaps those intractable thinkers should remember this aphorism: To err is human; to forgive, divine. (Or maybe that’s “strychnine.”)

Somebody said that before, DNA thinks. Oh yeah, it was Alexander Pope. Which brings DNA to its next point: How many times do you have to hear or see something before you no longer feel bad for ripping off Alexander Pope? What falls into the bounds of common knowledge? There is certainly something rotten in Denmark. Et tu, Brute? I’d rather serve in Denny’s than manage in McDonald’s. You see where DNA is going with this, DNA hopes? When does DNA get to say “continental drift” without saying, “as originally described by Alfred Wegner?” The rules are not very clear. Common knowledge pretty much means, “If you already knew it, then you’re okay, but if you had to get your information from somewhere else, then it was not common knowledge to you, so you better cite it, or else.” That definition, in one form or another, can be found all over the place. DNA guesses that makes it common knowledge.

Unfortunately, the definition is so relative to an individual’s experience as to nearly be worthless. Language itself, being self-reflexive, tends to blur authorship/ownership over time. “But surely, there must be a definable point at which something can’t be considered ‘common’ anymore,” you say. Yes, it makes sense that that point exists. And stop calling me Shirley. Now, does DNA have to attribute that joke to the writers of the movie, Airplane!? DNA hopes we’re not there as a society. As soon as free expression is curtailed out of fear of penalty or reprisal because you did not attribute everything correctly, then the argument against plagiarism has officially stepped off the deep end. Right now, at SIU, we seem dangerously close to testing those waters.

Do we want a teacher who uses somebody else’s teaching statement? Do we want a chancellor who copies large chunks of a previously developed plan and inserts them into his new work here? Do we want a president who committed plagiarism in his thesis and dissertation? Do we want to start looking at everybody’s published theses and dissertations and comb through them for signs of plagiarism? No, of course not. In a perfect world, every teacher’s teaching statements would be unique or attributed carefully, every chancellor would cite their old plans or create new plans when envisioning a specific university’s future, and every president would produce a thesis and dissertation which become the standards for scholarly excellence, and nobody would ever commit an act of plagiarism, intentional or otherwise, in their student or professional works.

Or, we could accept a more modest proposal. Should DNA attribute that? It will, to Jonathan Swift, who suggested, in 1729, that the Irish in Ireland could solve their social problems if they only ate their own children, particularly the poor ones. (They are very tasty, he reports.) Here’s DNA’s modest, slightly less biting, proposal: Teach students, through a process of experience, why they should not plagiarize. Teachers should show them examples and should be examples of proper behavior, instead of making examples of students when they foul up. Students who foul up include graduate students, too. Even though doctoral grads should have learned their lessons already, some will still make dumb mistakes. Which brings DNA to an important side note: Did you know that school is the place at which you get to make dumb mistakes, and not have it cost you your career? We learn by making mistakes. Why do you think so many people teach at universities? The amateurs (students) should get treated with kid gloves until they turn pro (graduate). Professionals (professors, administrators, et cetera), however, should bear the full responsibility of their actions. That’s why they are paid the big bucks.

It would be nice if the world followed the diet suggested by DNA’s modest proposal, but it doesn’t. Instead, we’re filled up by the side dishes. It’s hard to say how that happened, but perhaps some of the ill-advised statements weeks before a decision about Poshard’s plagiarism by board members, which certainly sounded like a rubber stamp of approval for President Poshard, didn’t help, nor did the many statements by folks who had axes to grind against SIU. Nor did those who extolled Poshard’s character and trivialized any potential wrongdoing, or those who faulted the process or the findings of a committee for lacking integrity, et cetera., et cetera.

Unfortunately, the issue of plagiarism seems to be the McGuffin of this Hitchcockian drama. Really, does this “scandal” affect the quality of DNA’s degrees? No. DNA still learned what he learned while he was here as a student. DNA takes that with him wherever he goes. Will it affect whether or not an SIU grad is hired somewhere? No company or institution or human-resources manager would be stupid enough to assume that somehow this issue devalued any individual’s education. Scandals like this have come and gone at universities a lot more prestigious than SIU. Guess what? They are still more prestigious. The elephant in the living room is this: There wouldn’t be a private group of “concerned” citizens investigating certain targets if there hadn’t existed a longstanding culture of SIU administrators treating teachers poorly. It’s a fact that we have a larger, well-paid administration at SIU, and a smaller, less well-paid faculty compared to other similar institutions around the country. It’s hard to reconcile institutional inequalities like that without sacrificing some rams along with some sheep. Poshard is enough of a politician to keep from getting his throat cut, but can he lead us out of this valley, or will we go straight over a cliff? DNA actually thinks his detractors are afraid he might succeed, not fail, because their axes would be blunted if things started to get better with Glenn at the helm. DNA doesn’t believe those concerned citizens actually care about plagiarism as much as they care about plagiarism being a means to an end.

Please, President Poshard, Chancellor Fernando Treviño, if you or your staff happen to read this, DNA ain’t the Lorax, but he do speak for some of the trees around here: Take this opportunity to lead. Change the culture, change the perception that our administration is bloated and our teachers are undervalued. You can do this. Some folks have faith— not blind faith, but faith nonetheless— that you are the right people for the job. This plagiarism issue is likely the first and last test you will be allowed to fail. Yes, fail. You certainly did not win over hearts and minds here with your words and actions. You survived, which is important in the long run, but that is not compelling evidence you are fit to take on this challenge. DNA hopes, for students, faculty, the institution, and the region, that you are. If you are not, leave now. Too many people depend on your success.

Okay, that was the “real” writing that DNA does from time to time. Didn't mean to have it intrude in his internetlife. Can’t help it if the dick jokes or memories of the music biz are not bubbling to the surface right now.

What have you plagiarized lately? Tell DNA in the guestbook.

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Last updated on 11/17/07