Things I Don't Understand - Part 2
So melanin protects your skin from sun damage, right? That's how your skin tans and why people from hotter climates tend to be darker skinned than those from cooler climates. But the darker something is, the more heat it absorbs from sunlight. Wouldn't melanin would work better if it made you lighter instead of darker?
Why don't fish suffocate in a frozen lake? They breathe by absorbing oxygen from water but they process it into carbon dioxide just like we do, and eventually the oxygen would run out. If the surface is frozen, no new oxygen can circulate in, so at the end of a long winter, when a lake thaws, shouldn't there be a bunch of dead fish in a fizzy (carbonated) lake?
Suicide is illegal. That means that it is a punishable offense. That means that a police officer can shoot you to prevent you from killing yourself. By being guilty of said crime, you have demonstrated a disregard and in fact a distaste for your own life. So what exactly does the law think it's deterring with these potential punishments? The highest punishment for any crime we have is the death penalty. Could a potential death sentence prevent suicide?
As a person who has been single for a few years now, I don't understand how people can be mean to their mates. To put this in context, I had a conversation the other day with two women who were bragging --well, 'bragging' isn't quite the right word, but I'm not sure what else you could call it--about how they nagged they're boyfriend and husband respectively. They're aware of the problem--although the way they were talking it was one of those 'my problem is bigger than your problem' conversation--so why don't they just stop? Just go home and kiss your mate and love them and knock that shit off. I wouldn't do that, and somehow I remain single. What, am I ugly or something? Is it that hard to be decent to someone you love enough to marry?
Why does Martin Lawrence have a career?
Ear buds have terrible sound quality. You cannot generate proper musical dynamics with them. So why are people opting for them so much in today's I-Pod driven world? Do you think they're accessories? There are serious, hardworking, brilliant musicians that want you to listen to the fine dynamics of their work and you're treating their music like jewelry.
I can't stretch my head enough to wrap it around slavery. We have a system now, in taking unfair advantage of the "third world" that could be called slavery (very low wages, unhealthy work conditions), but there is a difference between that and the full on Uncle Tom's Cabin type slavery. The main difference is distance. Modern slavery by the west flies under most people's radar because it's far away and out of sight. If you were a white person in the US prior to 1863, the slaves were up close where you can look them in it's eye. You could see them being happy or sad, you could see them trying to care for their children, you could see them falling in love with one another, all those regular human things that you yourself did, but the difference was that you had your proverbial foot on their proverbial throats. But wait there's more! This wasn't an easy system to set up. The capture, shipping, and trading of the slaves, was no easy task. While it was horrific for the slaves, horrific to a degree I can't come near to imagining, it was at the very least a significant pain in the ass for the traders to pull it off. More than enough of a pain in the ass to cause them to re-evaluate just what it was they were doing. It must have. The difficulty of trading slaves at some point MUST HAVE caused them to stop and look into their victims eyes and said "Hey waitaminnit. This is a really fucked up thing to do!" So how did it happen? I can actually understand the Nazi holocaust more readily than I can understand slavery. At least in Nazi Germany, they had technology to help their atrocity become clean and efficient. How do you start something that is so clearly obviously a bad idea and has so many steps involved and at none of those steps stop and realize what you're doing?
Why does Tom Jones have a Welsh accent when he is just speaking, but not when he's doing a spoken part of a song?
Why don't fish suffocate in a frozen lake? They breathe by absorbing oxygen from water but they process it into carbon dioxide just like we do, and eventually the oxygen would run out. If the surface is frozen, no new oxygen can circulate in, so at the end of a long winter, when a lake thaws, shouldn't there be a bunch of dead fish in a fizzy (carbonated) lake?
Suicide is illegal. That means that it is a punishable offense. That means that a police officer can shoot you to prevent you from killing yourself. By being guilty of said crime, you have demonstrated a disregard and in fact a distaste for your own life. So what exactly does the law think it's deterring with these potential punishments? The highest punishment for any crime we have is the death penalty. Could a potential death sentence prevent suicide?
As a person who has been single for a few years now, I don't understand how people can be mean to their mates. To put this in context, I had a conversation the other day with two women who were bragging --well, 'bragging' isn't quite the right word, but I'm not sure what else you could call it--about how they nagged they're boyfriend and husband respectively. They're aware of the problem--although the way they were talking it was one of those 'my problem is bigger than your problem' conversation--so why don't they just stop? Just go home and kiss your mate and love them and knock that shit off. I wouldn't do that, and somehow I remain single. What, am I ugly or something? Is it that hard to be decent to someone you love enough to marry?
Why does Martin Lawrence have a career?
Ear buds have terrible sound quality. You cannot generate proper musical dynamics with them. So why are people opting for them so much in today's I-Pod driven world? Do you think they're accessories? There are serious, hardworking, brilliant musicians that want you to listen to the fine dynamics of their work and you're treating their music like jewelry.
I can't stretch my head enough to wrap it around slavery. We have a system now, in taking unfair advantage of the "third world" that could be called slavery (very low wages, unhealthy work conditions), but there is a difference between that and the full on Uncle Tom's Cabin type slavery. The main difference is distance. Modern slavery by the west flies under most people's radar because it's far away and out of sight. If you were a white person in the US prior to 1863, the slaves were up close where you can look them in it's eye. You could see them being happy or sad, you could see them trying to care for their children, you could see them falling in love with one another, all those regular human things that you yourself did, but the difference was that you had your proverbial foot on their proverbial throats. But wait there's more! This wasn't an easy system to set up. The capture, shipping, and trading of the slaves, was no easy task. While it was horrific for the slaves, horrific to a degree I can't come near to imagining, it was at the very least a significant pain in the ass for the traders to pull it off. More than enough of a pain in the ass to cause them to re-evaluate just what it was they were doing. It must have. The difficulty of trading slaves at some point MUST HAVE caused them to stop and look into their victims eyes and said "Hey waitaminnit. This is a really fucked up thing to do!" So how did it happen? I can actually understand the Nazi holocaust more readily than I can understand slavery. At least in Nazi Germany, they had technology to help their atrocity become clean and efficient. How do you start something that is so clearly obviously a bad idea and has so many steps involved and at none of those steps stop and realize what you're doing?
Why does Tom Jones have a Welsh accent when he is just speaking, but not when he's doing a spoken part of a song?
posted by John McKenna at 1:04 PM
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