Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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This is just an absolute low for commercial products and capitalism:

Chinese authorities have told the FDA that the wheat gluten was an industrial product not meant for pet food, Sundlof said. Still, melamine can skew test results to make a product appear more protein-rich than it really is, he added. That raises the possibility the contamination was deliberate. (source)

FDA officials won’t know for sure until their visas to China are approved and they begin the inspection of the facilities, but the fact remains, there is a high probability that the food was deliberately contaminated just so the food would pass muster. Pathetic.

To top it off some of the melamine may have gotten placed into pig feed as well. The agent was found in pig urine at a pig farm and that farm has been quarantined. FDA officials are now looking into the possibility that the meat sold from that farm was contaminated.

So the identity of the gunman behind the killing of 32 people at Virginia Tech, including himself, is now known. The man was 23 year old Cho Seung-Hui, a resident alien who immigrated from South Korea in 1992.

He’s Korean. He shot and senselessly killed people.

This seems to be all the justification anyone needs to start with the Korean and Asian jokes, it’s all the cause needed for many to look askance at anyone of Asian ethnicity. Never mind that they might be Chinese, Japanese, or even Hawaiian. It’s automatically assumed that one person’s actions speak for an entire race of people.

I actually heard a word today that I hadn’t heard since I was a young little girl helping out at the American Legion on Saturdays and listening to the Vietnam and Korean vets commiserating.

I heard a twenty something white male baldy say at the post office today that “this shit proves them kinks are no fucking good.”

For those that don’t know, “kink” is a racial slur used for those of Korean descent.

Now granted, this man was clearly screwed up in the head, but are his actions reflective of all Koreans?

I think Peggy McIntosh sums this up best in her essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (1990) :

I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

So very true. I don’t recall hearing anyone saying things like “damn those whites, look what they’re bringing our society to” when Timothy McVeigh decided to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. If McVeigh is not being used as a representation of the “white race” then why is Seung-Hui being used as a figure head for Koreans?

Dear Science Fiction Writers,

I’m sorry to inform you that one of your most favored “ideas” to use as a plot device is no longer available to you as it is now being manipulated by the scientists who dictate reality. Although you are certainly welcome to continue utilizing it you must be aware that continued usage of this device will move your fantastic tales of fiction to the realm of non-fiction. I am of course talking about that infamous monkey wrench you love to toss into the gears of your protagonists, the manipulation of his memories.Hence forth, should you decide that your hero (or one of the supporting cast members) is to be captured by the evil vilian and their memory should be augmented, either by chemical or mechanical means, this scenario is no longer available as oh wow imagine if they really could concept, it is now fact.

Script and storyline writers for Days of Our Lives, Dark Angel, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Sailor Moon), Kidou Senshi Gundam Seed Destiny (Gundam Seed Destiny) and so forth should also take note. I’m afraid your ever predictable and re-occurring vilianous erasing of memories is no longer “far out”. Though let’s be honest, it was becoming a bit too cliche and predictable anyway. Reality fans can now rejoice! That annoying plot device has now been moved to your realm of perception.

I understand that this message may be alarming, however, there is nothing wrong with your computer screen. Do not attempt to adjust your computer screen’s settings We now control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand painful memories or expand one single memory to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive or we can erase it. From now on we will control all that you see, hear, and remember. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to… Reality.

To understand read this article . This raises an alarming amount of ethical questions. What right do we have, as human beings, to arbitrarily remove the memories of others? How can we be certain that this new methodology will not be used against us? Hence forth, how will anyone be 100% sure that the memories they hold are true?

Well there’s a word you don’t seem to hear much anymore. If and when you do hear about it it’s usually taken out of context or completely misused. So I ask you, what is responsibility? Do we as a society even understand and uphold it anymore or has it become a textbook definition now?

At one message board I post at one member commented on how she forgot to check her pockets and left her ipod in it. When she remembered she called her mom and told her to take it out for her, the mother forgot and the ipod got washed and subsequently trashed. The poster was incensed over the incident and was irked when her mother only gave her $50 towards a new ipod. Other posters suggested the mother was responsible and should foot the bill or at least pay half.

Why? The postee was old enough to do her own laundry instead of asking her mother to do it. But first and foremost she should have checked her pockets herself, if she had been responsible and taken care of her things to begin with that scenario would never have happened. How is it that the fault lies solely on the mother and she should be held accountable? No doubt the woman had other things to do besides keeping up with her grown daughter’s belongings. If that had happened to me I would have felt like kicking myself for not checking and I’m sure my mother would have offered to help pay out of misplaced guilt but ultimately I would have turned her down because it was my fault after all.

Then at another board a postee commented on how he was in a hurry to get to class and parked his car in a handicap parking space despite being anything but handicapped. He had no placard or special plates and is really just too self centered to even consider giving his own grandmother a lift so he can’t even say that he chauffeurs a disabled person around either. This leads us to what happened to him that day. Apparently while he was in class he got ticketed for parking where he should not have parked. He had not anticipated this happening because he knew the people on shift that day for the campus parking and he knew their schedule to boot and knew no one would check that parking lot while he was in class. The only reason he got the ticket was because the person parked next to him called the campus police and reported him.

While he was exiting the building he passed by one of the administrative offices and over heard an elderly gentlemen apologizing for not getting there sooner because he was unable to get a parking space because someone had illegally parked in a handicap space. The gentlemen went on to say that not only was there no other place to park within walking distance he couldn’t walk very far because his knee had been acting up as well so he ended up calling the campus police to have the vehicle towed. When the police arrived a slot had barely opened up next to the handicap spaces so the man took that and told the police just to leave it alone. Apparently the cops thought giving a ticket to the person illegally parked was the least they could do.

Hearing this the guy ran out to check his precious truck and yup, there on his windshield was a ticket. The postee stated he was so pissed off because that “old f*cker” was responsible for him getting a ticket.

Um, no, he alone was responsible for the ticket. He decided to park where he knew he should not park and was held accountable. End of discussion. But no, that wasn’t it. The poster than commented on how he keyed the vehicle next to him and felt justified in doing so because it was what the old man “deserved”.

To top it off several posters commented on how the old man should have “minded his own business” and that he could have just parked somewhere else. Am I the only one who can clearly see who was in the right and who was in the wrong here or is my perception of responsibility and accountability skewed from the rest of society’s?