2/8/10  Non-recycling Recycling

      You might be familiar with the catch-phrase, reduce, reuse, recycle. While this has a nice ring to it I think it's slightly misunderstood or incomplete as some of what is called recycling seems like it, but really isn't.

      Take an aluminum can. When you drink the beer, soda or whatever, you return it to the store and jam it into one of those machines which crushes it into a big plastic bag. This is taken to an aluminum processor and eventually becomes another can and the cycle comes full circle. This is recycling, there's a cycle, as indicated in the symbol of a triangular mobius strip that goes round and round.

      On the other hand, "recycled" glass bottles don't necessarily become new glass bottles. They can be ground up into aggregate for concrete roads and things like that. At which point it reaches the end of the line, they don't reuse the glass as bottles for your daily ration of beer. So there is no cycle which means it's not really recycling.

      You might call that reuse instead. Yet is that really reuse? The bottle isn't reused as a bottle, but as raw material for something else, though it remains glass.

      A more direct reuse is an empty butter tub reused as a leftovers container. In this case you don't shred the tub into bits or beat it to a pulp or anything. The container stays a container only with something else in it. That's reuse where you don't change its form or use really.

      I propose the last case is reuse, and the aluminum can business is recycle, but what happens with the ground up glass is neither. It's another category which I'd call repurpose. Notice with reuse and recycle they're cyclical, the items or materials are used over and over.

      Which isn't the case for repurpose where you use a finished product as raw material for something else rather than in the same way. Repurposing this way means glass doesn't wind up in a landfill but in a road. (Which then fits into the reduce category, too.) Still there's no cycle to it.

      Then again, a good deal of what we use is reused. When you eat off a plate you don't throw it away, you wash and reuse it. Unless it's a paper plate. Still, you could call that reuse. Similarly we reuse our clothes over and over and over. Until they get a hole in them then we throw them away, turn them into rags (repurpose) or patch the hole and continue to reuse them.

      Perhaps patching or mending adds a new "R" to the saying, repair. After all, repairing something so you can continue reusing it keeps it out of the garbage stream, which seems to be the goal of all the Rs to begin with. So we wind up with...

Reduce, repurpose, repair, reuse, recycle.

      That should clear things up. I think I've successfully solved a problem that didn't need solving.

1/21/10  Turn Vice into Virtue

      The proverbial seven deadly sins are anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, and sloth. People are mostly against these sins. At least in other people. However, if we replace the words with less odious terms to apply to ourselves we can transform from sinners into saints. Or if not saints exactly, sinners lite.

Instead of anger, say outrage.
Instead of envy, say equality.
Instead of gluttony, say gourmandery.
Instead of greed, say self-interest.
Instead of lust, say hot-blooded.
Instead of pride, say self-esteem.
Instead of sloth, say laid-back.

      Now then, don't you feel better about yourself? But don't get carried away with the feeling or you're back to pride.

      On the other hand there are folks who make a virtue of "acting naturally". These people will tell you checking your natural inclination in favor of some societal rule of behavior is being fake or hypocritical or dishonest. (Is there a Dr. House in the house?)

      But ask yourself, how many of the seven deadly sins are natural impulses. If your answer is seven, then the seven sins: anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, and sloth; become seven virtues: act naturally, act naturally, act naturally, act naturally, act naturally, act naturally, and act naturally.

      An important point of civilization is to get people to act civilized and stop acting naturally. At least where our natural impulses are harmful. To behave according to social convention is not hypocritical if you believe it's the right thing to do. You might say it's the victory of the civilized mind over the natural brain, the triumph of reason over impulse.

11/29/09  Accidoptal Illusion

      I ran across this optical illusion on my living room wall. It was caused by sunlight streaming through the miniblinds on the picture window casting a series of stripes on a framed photo. I recreated it above. The box representing the frame, mat and photo are square, but it looks cock-eyed on the bottom. Appearing as if the bottom right-hand corner is drooping, if that's the right description.

      Here's the same bit of art without the light bands. Looks perfectly square in this case.

      I admit it's not the most dramatic optical illusion you'll ever see. I thought it curious as it happened by accident in everyday life and not by design on paper. Thing is, we run into optical illusions quite often without always noticing. I wrote about this a while back, if that or this interests you at all.

11/26/09  HTDUSA

      If you want to know what Thanksgiving Day is about, try pronouncing it differently than you might do normally. Instead of "thanks-GIV-ing" say "THANKS-giv-ing."

      Make sense? Who cares. I'm taking the day off.

11/8/09  The More Things Change...

      When the Soviet Union fell apart Communism was replaced with... I don't know what you'd call it, but the Russian president is the former head of the KGB. This might amuse them in some ironic sort of way because it seems one thing that hasn't changed is the Russians' dark sense of humor.

      For instance, here's a pair of Russian gags from back in the USSR:

What is 150 yards long and eats potatoes?
A Moscow queue waiting to buy meat.

The government pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work.

      Now one from nowadays:

To save energy, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off.

      Which only goes to show no matter the form of government the national temperament remains the same. Or as the old song lyric goes, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."

9/3/09  Too Far Over the Edge?

A snippet from a recent news article:

      ...Adams said there had been a rise in complaints from people unhappy with their savings. He said it appeared some companies had over-exaggerated the savings....

      What I wonder, is over-exaggerated a word? What exactly does it mean? Can you under-exaggerate? Is there, like Goldilocks might say, an amount of exaggeration that's just right? Would I know that if I heard it?

      Is it similar to being better than the best? Is it akin to being extra pregnant? Or like being too dead?

      I'm reminded of the phrase "forever and ever." Do we really need to add 'and ever' to forever? Isn't forever long enough? Or am I excessively over-reacting too much?

7/28/09  “We Don't Have no Stinking System”

      There's a lot of chatter nowadays about the health care "system". Is there one? I mean, nobody talks about the car repair "system".

      Cars are serviced under warranty, covered by insurance, or paid for by the owner out of pocket. Heck, shade tree mechanics fix their cars themselves, with varying success. Duck tape isn't proper bodywork and bent coat hangers hang coats a lot better than tailpipes. Still, there is no car repair system I can see.

      For health care there's Medicare, private insurance, employee health benefits, out of pocket payment by the patient and more. Like shade tree mechanics, some patients try self-healing with home brewed elixirs, fad diets, positive thinking, crystals, or whatever else might appear in some book or blog. It's a pretty unsystematic system. More like a variety of systems.

      So I wonder, when people talk about the health care "system", what are they actually referring to?

7/2/09  And Now...

As Monty Python used to say, "and now for something completely different." A gag cartoon. Which hopefully doesn't make you gag, though that pun might.

5/27/09  Orange You Glad You're Not Purple?

      Colors are commonly associated with attitudes and emotions. Yellow is cowardly, blue is sad, red is angry, green is envious. Depressed or sad is also black, as in a black mood. Which means black is blue. Though black and blue together means sore as in taking a beating. Taking a beating in the stock market puts you in the red, which might make you blue, too.

      What about the other two colors that complete the color wheel, orange and purple? Why do they get left out? What are you when you're orange? Would it mean anything to you if someone said they were feeling purple? If these hues were beings would orange and purple be green with envy? Color me dubious about that, even though I can't imagine what color dubious would be.

5/5/09  Motoring Mirth

      Here's a bit of strange news: Motorist stopped by police for laughing...

Is there a problem, officer?
I pulled you over because you were laughing.
Are you joking?
Are you laughing?
Not any more.

      You've likely seen folks do all sorts of things while driving, making phone calls, eating, drinking, putting on make-up, shaving, reading a map. Wonder if that map shows the spot where they go off the road and hit a tree.

      No doubt we could do without these distractions while piloting a one ton vehicle careening down the roadway. Still, how far should we go to keep driver's minding their driving? If we're going after driver's for their mood I suggest we go after road rage more than highway humor.

3/22/09  Spring has sprung...

      ...the lark is on the wing, the snail is on the thorn and two birds are on hand in the bush. Soon April showers may bring flowers and possibly the IRS. In which case you might be taking a bath instead of a shower.

      As far as I'm concerned warmer weather can't get here too soon. Perhaps that's because I live in Michigan, the "Winter Water Wonderland." Or so the old license plates proclaimed. Seems advertising the winteriness of the place has gone out of fashion as the motto changed to "The Great Lake State." Then to simply "Great Lakes." I suppose just "Lakes" will be the final slogan.

      Or maybe they'll eventually reduce it to "Great." Though that could be taken sarcastically. "Michigan? Yeah, great." Still, we do border on Lake Superior which is a Great Lake. A lake both great and superior. Does the hyperbole never end? Though in this case great just means big and superior refers to farther up or above. The same way they use superior and inferior in anatomy. That makes Lake Superior big and farther upstream or more northernerish.

At least that's the story I'm going with.