Category Archives: Science

Toxic Masculinity

I read stuff.  And every once in awhile I come across something that is so timely and pertinent that I wonder why it is news to me.  Toxic masculinity is a term that strikes me as falling into that category.  I am not sure how prevalent the term is, but for me credit is due Amanda Marcotte of Solon.com.  The abridgment of her article appears in a July edition of The Week magazine, something I read regularly.  I don’t know if she is the originator of the term.  For all I know it might actually be an official diagnosis in a  compendium of psychiatric disorders.   But my point is I heard about it and wonder why I haven’t heard about it before.

To paraphrase Ms. Marcotte’s article, toxic masculinity is a distorted form of manhood geared toward dominance and control, views women and gays as inferior, valorizes violence, and glamorizes guns.  And while toxic masculinity aspires to toughness, it is rooted in a fear of being soft, weak, emasculated.  Almost all mass killers share this fear.

This article appeared in The Week magazine shortly after Omar Mateen went berserk in Orlando.  From what I have read about him, toxic masculinity would seem to describe his psychological state, in a layman’s fashion anyway.   But there are so many examples of this exhibited by people we see every day walking around in our communities.  Take “Bluto” here for instance: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/go-fcking-make-my-tortilla-unhinged-trump-protester-goes-batsht-insane-on-hispanic-protester/

Makes you proud to be an American.  We have all seen a guy like this at one time or another.  They love political rallies, but lots of times they are at the ball park embarrassing themselves a few rows up from you and totally ruining your day. OK.  That guy might be just an obnoxious drunk.  But he’s so unsavory you have to label him as semi-toxic at least.   The point is these guys are all over the place.  Maybe you had a confrontation with one.  Yikes!  What do you suppose the deal is with the bare chest?  You think he wants to show off his sculpted torso or his tattoos?  He might want to be careful.  He’s got two nipples hanging out there.

Here’s the thing about nipples.  I’m just postulating here, but I think my theory dove-tails nicely with masculine toxicity.   I’ve been thinking on this for several hours.   On a man nipples are confusing.  What the fuck are they doing on a guy’s chest anyway?  They don’t seem to posses any evolutionary advantage in any way.  Bluto might want to be aware not only does he have nipples, but there’s some estrogen flowing around in his chest and elsewhere. Unlike nipples, guys need estrogen- for maintaining bone mass, and believe it or not, some is needed for normal erectile function.

You suppose that female stuff could all of a sudden start surging or something and make Bluto get all girly.  I think it’s possible.  It could be a big worry for him.  I bet that’s why he is lashing out.  Maybe its not testosterone overload that’s pushing his buttons.  Raging hormones is something attributed to women as well as men. What exactly causes all the fuss is unpredictable.  I imagine we all go through a hormonal roller coaster ride now and then.   I’m just sayin’.  All the ebb and flow of different hormones probably has something to do with feelings of sexual identity.  It just makes sense.  What guy doesn’t feel a little uncomfortable watching “Brokeback Mountain”, or even “Bird Cage.”  Bluto would probably say the movies are disgusting, when possibly, deep down, he’s a little worried he just might be suppressing some underlying attraction.  My guess is it’s not muscles or tattoos Bluto wants to show off.   It’s his nipples- like so many women liked to do as a form of protest in the 60’s.  I came to appreciate the gesture  back then.  Now- not so much.  Toxic masculinity explains a lot.  Geezuz Bluto put your shirt back on and go get help.  Your insecurity is showing.

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Original, more sexually secure Bluto

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or how about this guy.

Extraterrestrials

There’s a Russian, Yuri Milner, that’s forking over a hundred million bucks to fund a kind of massive probing of the universe to search for intelligent life.  From what I understand it’s more of a probing for “sounds” of intelligent life.  I tried to insert a link right here so you could see i am not making this up, but turns out my host site got all screwed up with their recent update and now you need a plug in or you have to deactivate a plug in or some kind of shit like that, and you should know I have no clue how to do any of that crap so you are on your own.  Just google Yuri Milner.  Trust me.  I know you’re helpless and  kind of a lazy piece of shit, but I’m not about to do everything for you.  This guy seems to be pretty much on the ball.  He’s a billionaire to start with, but he was a physicist before he decided investing and finance was the way to go to maximize potential income.  Right there you have to hand it to him for intuition and perception, and since his investment strategy outcome is off the charts, I have to believe here’s a guy that really knows what he’s doing.

I for one believe there are some life forms out there in space that are just as smart as we are here on earth.  Looking around, you have to wonder how in the hell the human race even continues to exist.   As a group we do a lot stupid shit, pretty much on a second to second basis.  It really shouldn’t take much for anything living on another planet to double up the accumulative IQ score we have here.  Interject that fact into all the possibilities of life that logically have to exist in our massive, swirling universe, and it seems to me there has to be something out there in the sky that is smarter than a clump of rocks, or Donald Trump.  Lets face it.  It just takes a precise type and number of elements and chemicals to combine with the exact mix of heat and volatile gas and there you have it- life.  I know for a fact there is plenty of that shit floating around in space.

Lots of Shit Going on Here

Lots of Shit Going on Here

And space has been around for awhile.  There are lots of planets and stars and stuff that are way older than this giant ball of interplanetary material we are walking on.  Trust me, if there aren’t some pretty smart intergalactic creatures out there somewhere, there are at the very least some hidden planets with a plethora of very perceptive plankton on board just waiting for a big evolutionary breakthrough.  Somewhere, somehow, someone or something is bound to show up and say hi.

The thing is though we are so fucked up here on earth who in the universe would want to communicate with us anyway.  There are any number of regular people on my block I go out of my way to avoid.  And all those telemarketing and robo callers.  Geezuz they make me want to rip the phone line right out of the wall jack.  Actually I did that once.  One of my kids really pissed me off.  And now I can’t even do that.  We decided to discontinue our landline service.  Now I wish I had it back so I could rip the line out of the wall again whenever I get a telemarketing call.  The adrenaline rush can be kind of exhilarating.   Of course I have a cell phone I could stomp the shit out of.  It’s kind of a piece of crap phone, but that’s why I like it.  The keys are so small I always hit the wrong one right away when I try to text.  So I never text.  And that’s exactly what I want to not do.  I hate texting, and I can easily get away with a really cheap cell phone plan that way, so it works out great for me.  I hate phones in general.  Alexander Graham Bell was a dick as far as I’m concerned.  When I get to heaven I’m going to hunt him down and kick him in the balls.

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Human Peckerhead

So this Russian is spending his dough by leasing time on a couple of the most sophisticated radio telescopes on the planet in order to listen up, like way up, for beacons of some kind that would indicate intelligent life.  And here is the kicker.  Once there is confirmation that we have made some sort of interplanetary connection, part two of his plan is a million dollar prize that will be awarded to the guy that develops the best message that an earthling can send back.  I guess we have already dabbled in that sort of thing.  Astronomers and various other people have beamed all sorts of shit into the great beyond, coded messages, Craigslist postings,  Beatles songs, stuff like that.  Way back a Pioneer spacecraft carried a bunch of stuff along, including line drawings of a naked man and woman.

Dickless Martian

Peckerless Martian

I’m not sure who was responsible, but if it was someone in the porn industry I think they might have stepped over a fine line there.  If the idea of the drawings was to explain to interplanetary beings how we procreate on earth, can you imagine the entertainment value that has to have in the extraterrestrial comedy clubs out there?  How would you explain that process to a Martian?

I can only imagine what kind of shit my fellow earthlings will come up with in their attempt to collect the million dollar prize.  There will undoubtedly be a very volatile mix of rappers, evangelists, sports fans, military personnel, jihadists, gun enthusiasts, dietitians, nosey neighbors, democrats, republicans, vegans, beauty pageant contestants, movie actors, all jostling for position to make it clear to our cosmic friends what our world is all about.  And don’t forget corporate America.   Those guys aren’t about to let a million bucks lay around on the table without a fight.  You can bet during all the posturing a couple of people will get shot.  Could be a beheading or two.  In the end I suspect the whole project will come down to the proverbial “be careful what you wish for” axiom.  If there is indeed any intelligent life out there that intercepts our transmitted inter-galactic message, you would have to think that after studying up on us the most logical step they could take is to do the universe a favor by blowing our planet out of the sky.  Maybe the best thing Yuri Milner could do is rethink the project.