Two Cows

This is kind of one of those things floating around the internet that Michael Scott would forward to you in an e-mail. I actually think it's pretty funny.



U.S./TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

FRENCH CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. The cows go on strike to keep out American hormone-fed milk and launch a stampede through a McDonalds franchise at Euro-Disney. The French Cow Liberation Front hacks into the Cheddar website with images of Roquefort and WAV files declaring "Vive la France!"

JAPANESE CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them worldwide.

EXTROPIAN CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You read their DNA and figure out a way to create lean beef directly in a vat. You upload your cows. You debate endlessly on what to do with the originals cows, which are still alive and well, and are demanding bovine rights.

BRITISH CAPITALISM
You have two cows. Both are mad.

CHINESE CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AFRICAN CAPITALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them because they used to belong to white colonists. No one feeds them and they starve to death. Then you starve to death.

Below are the more traditional "two cows" explanation of political ideologies.

Feudalism
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Pure Socialism
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.

Real World Socialism
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.

Fascism
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Communism
You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Real World Communism
You share two cows with your neighbours. You and your neighbours bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

Russian Communism
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

Cambodian Communism
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Cuban Communism:
You have two cows. They swim to Florida and become capitalists.

Militarianism
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Totalitarianism
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Pure Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

A commenter over at Classical Values added this gem:

You have two cows. The larger of the two cows gives more milk but is determined to be a major producer of greenhouse gases.

The government takes that cow and gives you $4500 worth of other people's money toward the purchase of a smaller, hideously expensive but extremely tasteful and popular black Tajima-ushi cow, which produces less milk and requires daily brushing, purchased from a cattle rancher who recently marked up the cost of his product by roughly $4500.

The next day Youtube is hosting a video of your large cow being fed into a meat grinder tail first, surrounded by gibbering, giggling government sycophants. In certain circles, this is considered great justice.

Somehow, I understand the world a lot better now.

Medical marijuana

The latest The New Yorker (December 1, 2008) has Sasha Frere-Jones' article on Steven Ellison, a "a tall, soft-spoken twenty-five-year-old who works under the name Flying Lotus." He is part of a growing movement that is guiding hip-hop into the next decade via a road paved with a "fractal spidering of sounds, a backdrop of crackles, and prickling, feverish rhythms no human hands could play." I was actually intrigued by this description of his music. Although I am no fan of rap/hip-hop, I like the reincorporation of musical ideas into new compositions, like Eno and Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, or some of the better mashup artists like CCC. So I began reading the article.

The article describes the interior of Ellison's Northridge L.A. apartment, "typical of the twenty-first-century musician: a collection of laptops, keyboards, and processing units, none of them large and most of them portable." There is also this decorative touch:

A series of pharmacy bottles lined the wall behind his equipment. The clear orange cannisters were familiar, but not the names on the laser-printed labels: Grape Ape, Purple Haze. “Medical marijuana,” Ellison explained.

Huh? The picture accompanying the article shows a robust young man, leaning back in his chair and laughing heartily. He certainly didn't appear to be a cancer victim, or a glaucoma sufferer. Just what are the indications for medical marijuana usage?

According to Wikipedia, medical cannabis was shown to have established effects in the treatment of nausea, vomiting, unintentional weight loss, and lack of appetite. It is also indicated for treatment of certain types of glaucoma. So far, so good. The Wiki article goes on to note that marijuana is "indicated" in a variety of other conditions, such as epilepsy, asthma, migraines and arthritis. I can think of a number of drugs that are "indicated" as first-and even second-line therapy for these conditions, but I am unaware that there is extensive literature to back up the "indication" of marijuana usage in any of them. But that's okay, 'cause Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya of California has compiled a list of over 250 conditions that he has treated with medical marijuana, including (I kid you not) sedative dependence and opiate dependence. I am so behind the times, man.

As a person in recovery myself, I am baffled as to why anyone would consider treating substance abuse with another mind-altering drug.

The Wiki article does mention some of the concerns that the medical community has about smoked marijuana, specifically an Institute of Medicine study that concluded that smoking cannabis is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition. The FDA has approved Nabilone and Marinol for the treatment of unresponsive nausea associated with chemotherapy, and the use of a vaporizer has been mentioned as a delivery vehicle for the active components of marijuana.

Perhaps there are valid indications for the medical use of marijuana, other than glaucoma and nausea. In this era of evidence-based medicine, more trials are needed to establish its usefulness as a treatment. To claim that it is somehow useful in such diverse conditions as PMS or Grave's disease or (and again I kid you not) Writer's Cramp (International Classification of Diseases 9 Code 300.89) is farfetched based on our available evidence.

The push to legalize medical marijuana has been couched in terms that suggest opponents to its use are mean-spirited prudes who would want to see cancer-ridden bulimic glaucoma sufferers waste away into an even earlier grave than is their due.Unfortunately, Mr. Ellison, with his drug store bottles neatly lined up next to his water-operated “gravity bong,” paints quite a different picture.

Far out, man.

(BTW, I did check out the Radiohead "Reckoner" remix on the Flying Lotus MySpace page. Not bad, but not great, either.)

Michael who?

So we're riding in the car a few days ago, listening to some Christmas music that I had playlisted on the iPod. The usual stuff, of course, but I like to find some more obscure stuff if I can (how 'bout "Dominic the Christmas Donkey" or James Brown's "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto"?). So a mashup comes on, mixing Lennon's "Imagine" with a very young Michael Jackson singing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." It's actually pretty well done; try Googling Santastic II; it'll take you to a bunch of interesting holiday downloads.

THe kids asked who that girl was that was singing in the song. Anya and I laughed, and thus began a rather long discussion about who Michael Jackson was, how he was a superstar both as a child and an adult, how he had been fabulously wealthy (we didn't go into detail about his rather spectacular fall from grace). The girls were particularly fascinated by his pictures that we showed them on the internet. Emma still has trouble understanding what happened to his nose and how can he still sing without a nose and why did he not want his nose anymore.

The saddest thing for me, though, was the fact that just a little over 10 years ago, Michael Jackson was wall to wall world famous. There wasn't a kid on this planet (and probably a few others) that didn't know who he was. And yet here were two little girls (4 and 8 1/2) who had no clue of his identity--none at all. What happened?

Obviously, Michael was a talented individual. Songwriter, dancer, performer--he did it all, and sold millions, if not billions of records. But was his talent that deep? Will he be regarded as a classic? Some hugely popular artists withstand the test of time. I predict that we will still be listening to the music of Lennon-McCartney "many years from now;" the same goes for the song stylings of Bing Crosby or Sinatra.
I am not so sure that Britney or L'il Wayne will be part of anyone's classic canon down the road. American cultural history is apparently littered with "sensations" that find themselves beached and forgotten when the popular tide recedes. Who really remembers Paul Whiteman, or George W. Peck?

I actually feel sad for Michael Jackson, as strange and creepy as he was (is). It is amazing what fame can do to people. Sometimes the changes aren't just internal.