Recently, I wrote about the tragedy of Harambe, the gorilla shot in the Cincinnati zoo. In situations like these, when someone has to make a tough call, there’s always a spattering of outrage. The armchair warriors will come out in droves, to explain how the issue was mishandled, and how the zoo should have reacted. Even though there was a beautiful animal that died as a result, I find it hard to point a finger at someone.

Well, sometimes you can actually point a finger at a person or two.

The Tiger Temple, or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Yanasampanno if that rolls off the tongue easier, was originally founded in 1994 as a wildlife preserve in Thailand. Tourists are charged 600 Baht (about $22 Canadian) to get in and walk among the tigers. What was once a preserve has become perverse, as the temple was recently shut down to due allegations of tiger smuggling. Twenty-two men, three of whom are Buddhist monks, have been charged with trafficking animals. They were caught fleeing with a truck full of tiger’s skin. Forty dead cubs were found frozen in the temple, some having been frozen five years ago. Another thirty cubs were found preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Also found in the temple were skins and teeth and other various parts.

This wasn’t a conservation effort to take care of tigers, it was a cruel petting zoo for tourists for wanted to snap a picture with a tiger. The tigers were chained so close to the ground they could hardly stand. Some of them had been both declawed and defanged. In even more extreme cases, some of the tigers had their tendons removed, so they couldn’t swipe at people or even sprint. Tiger cubs were constantly overfed, because tourists paid good money to get a picture nursing a cub. This temple didn’t have money to create a proper environment for the tigers, but it certainly had enough money to perform elective surgery on the animals. Not to mention that the tigers were allowed to breed, which with a gene pool this size caused a number of tigers to be blind and deaf.

Majestic.

When did this animal sanctuary turn into a horror show? An organization called the Care for the Wild international has been investing the temple for over a decade. They submitted a report the temple was smuggling tigers in and out a tiger farm in Laos. Based on this report, a coalition of 39 conservation groups, including the Humane Society International, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, World Animal Protection, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, sent a letter to the director general of National parks in Thailand, urging the director to close the facility. The letter stated that the temple lacked the facilities, the training, the skills, or even the desire to look after the animals properly.

Reports and investigations continued, and the pressure has been ramped up in May 2016. Now police and wildlife official are working to remove all of the living tigers from the temple. The tiger torture camp is shutting down.

Why do places like these continue to operate, where animals live in degrading conditions and tortured? Two things; Tiger Selfies and Tiger Balm.

Only one animal here is living life to the fullest

In this modern day of one-upmanship on social media, people clamour to ‘Carpe Diem’, seizing more of the day than their virtual neighbors. And what could be a more life affirming, spiritual change than feeding a baby tiger, or getting a picture with a massive tiger head on your lap? Look at some of the reviews on Trip Advisor regarding the temple. Here’s some highlights.

• “You can hold and feed baby tigers!”
• “I realized my dream”
• “Great place to see tigers up close but sad to see them chained”
• “Best vacation activity I’ve EVER had!”
• “Yuk.”

Just like Harambe the gorilla, this is another example of people not really understanding animals. With Harambe, people were forgetting that this was a wild, massive, unpredictable, powerful animal that could have easily harmed the child. With the case of the tiger temple, people think a wild, massive, unpredictable, powerful animal could easily be tamed and chained without the use of sedatives and elective surgery.

The other issue is with the cultural problem in much of Eastern Asia, where bizarre concoctions of endangered animals seem to rejuvenate and treat ailments, like sore throats, thyroid problems, and masculinity issues. Education seems to be changing that, but there still lies a pile of old people who think that ground up rhinoceros horn will cure erectile disfunction.

I’m glad this place has been shut down, and you should too. But as long as there’s money to be made, there will always be someone willing to make a buck, no matter the cost.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Yes, I understand that Tiger Balm contains no tigers. I was trying to be clever.

p.s.s. Factory meat isn’t a whole lot better in regards to animal treatment. Buy from the farmer’s market. Grass-fed, happy cows taste better.

p.s.s.s. All photos taken from Twitter accounts.

“And what comedian configured the region between our legs—an entertainment complex built around a sewage system?”

Dr. Neil DeGrass Tyson

Transgender washrooms. For decades since the creation of indoor plumbing and the toilet, people have segregated themselves into different categories in order to urinate and defecate. Pissing and shitting is a rather humorous issue for human beings, statistically more than half of our cultural ideas of what’s funny stems with what comes out of our bodies. Our bodies do this in order to get rid of the waste that builds up from eating food and filtering out what isn’t necessary, and people find it absolutely hilarious. Well, no one is laughing right now.

All over North America, in both Canada and the United States, a vocal war is being fought over the use of the restrooms. Right here in Alberta, guidelines were recently drawn up that revised existing policies, allowing children and staff who are gender-diverse to choose which bathroom they want to use. State governments continue to battle the feds, as the Obama administration says public school must allow transgender students to use the washroom of their choice.

The critics of this policy have a target in mind, an insidious monster, a terrible scapegoat that seems to be the antagonist in many gender related issues. Our old friend the pervert has struck again, this time preying upon our most precious resource, children. Most of the criticism for these policies has been traced back to peeping toms, leering men and picture taking pornagraphers who want to snapchat images of women undressing and taking a whizz.

Mr. Charlton hears you people, loud and clear. We need to do something about this. The problem is people are still confused about their genitals. As a culture, we are forgetting that our junk is for two separate things; procreation and relieving our bodies of waste and bacteria. We need to start recognizing that because of this, our genitals shouldn’t just be thought about as tools for sexual reproduction and sweet love making, but also the completely normal, and apparently hilarious, act of taking a tinkle and dropping a deuce.

You know what? Let’s hit it out of the park with this idea. We need to start ingraining our communities that breasts are not just great to look at, but also that they serve as the most effective way to feed and inoculate children against disease. We could kill two birds with one stone. Teaching young people that going to the bathroom is normal and shouldn’t be sexualized, as well as teaching them breast feeding is also normal and doesn’t need to be sexualized.

As for the perverts, I’m not sure exactly what to do about that. I think that any unwanted sexual involvement, like rape, groping, and taking pictures of people without their consent for the purpose of satisfying sexual fetishes, is wrong. What consenting adults do in their free time, in the bedroom, their own bathroom, or over a rubber sheet in the living room, is none of my business.

Right now, thanks to the wonderful world wide web, most children are getting their first sexualized information from pornography. Even though pornography is something created for adults to consume, an ‘Are you over 18’ button is not the best gate keeper or guardian for your child. If you really want to get rid of perverts, if that’s something you feel society needs to tackle, then we need to start teaching children to not grow up to be perverts. We needs to teach children about things like human sexuality, consent, boundaries, sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy, and that how not everyone falls into one of the current gender binary norms.

Most of the children who were interviewed regarding the current policy review here in Alberta thought the parents, teachers, and adults were making a big deal over something as normal as going to the washroom. If all the children, our most precious resource, start wondering why all the grown ups are feuding, warring, making jokes, and writing dumb articles like one over something as natural and routine as going to the toilet, you might have to wonder who’s the immature one here.

The problem isn’t perverts, or transgendered people. It’s the insistence our genitals are inherently sexual, and that idea needs to change.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’ve never understood the whole urine / feces sexual fetish. Maybe it’s some sort of primal thing going on, but the last time I checked, poop smells really bad.

Running Windows 8, are you? Great, great, could you go ahead and install Windows 10? It’s free! All you have to do is click this button and BAM, Windows 10 will start downloading and installing itself onto your machine. Soon you’ll be connecting to the world on one of the most useful operating system ever devised, from your friends here at Microsoft.

Wait, hold on a sec, you clicked the other button, the one that said “Hey, I don’t want a great new product absolutely free”. Gotcha, you must have totally made some sort of mistake there, because there is NO WAY a rational, smart, educated, and good looking person such as yourself would even think about passing up the opportunity to upgrade to our latest piece of software, especially a free upgrade. So I’m going to throw up the message once again, make sure to push the right button this time.

Huh. You did it again. I wonder if there is something wrong with your mouse. Could also be a Windows 8 thing! It wasn’t a very good product. I mean, it wasn’t a very good product compared to Windows 10. Did I mention that Windows 10 is free? Well, considering you’re going to your… uhg… Chrome internet browser, it looks like your mouse is working just fine. Wow, you have a lot of toolbars. It’s like you’ll click on anything. Except for our product. Let me see if I can convince you that Windows 10 is a better fit for you.

Windows 10 is faster than Windows 8. And everyone wants more speed! You didn’t have enough RAM before? Well, Windows 10 uses less of it. All that RAM is just free for the taking. By you! You can use that RAM. To run other programs faster and better. Shucks, you can even run more programs now with all that free RAM. I should mention again that Windows 10 is free. And it comes pre-loaded with a bunch of new features.

It now has Cortana! You though Siri was cool, well, just you wait until you try out Cortana. She was Master Chief’s friend in the Halo series. You remember Halo, right? Awards winning video game series published by Microsoft for the Xboxes? You played it, right? No? Oh, okay, so then I guess having the protagonist’s sexy AI sidekick  isn’t really a selling point. But still, cool, right? You can talk to your computer like they do in Star Trek. Who doesn’t like Star Trek?

… You don’t like Star Trek? Really? So, you haven’t played Halo, not a Star Trek fan. Alright, alright, I’m beginning to see a pattern here. I’m just going to go ahead and ask you, what are you using your computer for anyways? Hmm… .okay…. hmmm… you’re using it for Facebook and Youtube videos, huh? That’s it. Okay, well, what if I told you that Facebook, Messenger and Instagram are creating new and improved apps for Windows 10, and that…

Wow, you just clicked the button. That’s all it took, huh? You couldn’t have possibly read the licensing terms and agreement that fast. I’m excited to see that you trust our products, but you should really at least skim them. Hey, we’re just glad you’re on board. I also see that you’ve clicked on the ‘Import Old Programs’ button. Sure thing, let me just take a look, yep, everything seems normal… What’s sexygirlsdancing.exe? Why did you install this? You don’t remember, huh? Let’s see what else we have buried here… oh gosh. Oh my.

• freelamegame.exe
• facebooklaughs.exe
• usesocsecnumaspass.exe
• 101jokesoftheday.exe
• thebesttrojanhorse.exe

Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve basically given your computer AIDS. You clicked, you clicked on everything. I can’t… I can’t bring all this over. Please don’t make me bring this over.

*** System Re-booting***

 Review by %$#Will-Gats-420#$%

Windoz ten sux teh big 1. Wat a waste of tim. i uses to luv microsov, but know they R teh lamest! Now my sweet rig wont paly any of my gamez. Cortana is sooooo coo, tho, only cool thing about this whole lameass windoz 10.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I recently updated to Windows 10. It’s actually not a bad operating system. Keep in mind though, I didn’t bring anything over, I did an install from scratch.

p.s.s. You have no idea how hard it is to write like an idiot on the internet. I mean, I’ve struggled with writing before, I think everyone has struggled in the past with putting words down, but sweet peaches.

p.s.s.s. I now have a lot more respect for professional trolls who act like morons on the internet. There’s actually an art to spelling that badly.

 

 

The Cincinnati Zoo is responding to an incident that recently happened at their zoo. A four year old boy, who managed to circumvent the safety bars at the gorilla enclosure, fell in. Harambe the gorilla, a seventeen year old western lowland gorilla, grabbed the boy by the ankle and took him further into the enclosure.

Reports from eye witnesses vary. Some noted that Harambe seemed to be taking care of the small child, protecting him and standing in front of him. Others said that the gorilla violently grabbed the boy and dragged him from the moat. In the end, the zoo made the decision to shoot the gorilla, killing it.

Now everyone seems to be outraged at the killing of the gorilla, or they’re outraged that people are outraged that an animal was put down to save a child. Protestors are holding a vigil for Harambe, Rainn Wilson reminds us that people are killed by guns every day, Kaley Cuoco and Ricky Gervais are leading a tribute to the fallen animal, and even the Donald is giving us his two cents on the matter. Some people want to press charges against the zoo, some people want to press charges against the parents of the kid. Everyone seems to have an opinion about the matter.

People like animals. A lot of celebrities seem to take up causes for animals, saying they’re speaking for those that can’t speak for themselves. They wax poetic about animals, talking about their majesty, their grace and their poise. And animals are amazing, I have to agree. Unfortunately, they’re still animals, and they still behave like animals. They can be brutally vicious, highly territorial, and incredibly unpredictable. Remember the chimpanzee Travis? He was an animal star, until one day he decided to rip off someone’s face.

People forget that this wasn’t Jane Goodall trapped down there with a gorilla, it was a toddler. And this wasn’t the serene setting of the African jungle, this was a crowded zoo in Cincinnati. The crowd of zoo patrons start freaking out and panicking once they saw what was going on. That’s typically what crowds do. Now you have this scenario where there’s a child, and a massive gorilla in the way, with everyone around screaming and making a scene.

Some have suggested they should have used tranquilizers. Except knocking out an animal isn’t like in the movies. It takes minutes for a tranquilizer to act on the body, not seconds. So for a few minutes, you’ve just shot a wild animal with a dart, which I’m sure is painful, while it’s standing in front of a tyke. They couldn’t afford to take the risk that the gorilla wouldn’t just freak out.

The zoo made the right call to kill Harambe. The boy climbed over the barriers holding Harambe, and occasionally kids will make poor judgements like that. What’s always odd is the number of celebrities that seem to come out of the wood works when an animal is killed. When Cecil the Lion was killed, Jimmy Kimmel was in tears, and devoted his opening monologue to the death of Cecil. Numerous celebrities are involved with PETA, even though PETA is a notoriously radical organization, wanting to end the possession of animals for pets. If PETA had it’s way, you wouldn’t be allowed to own a dog or a pet fish.

I just find it somewhat bizarre that smart, successful people, especially those in show business, don’t understand that wild animals are still wild animals. On the other hand, I grew up in a part of the world where wildlife is common. I’ve been educated in knowing how to react properly to a bear, and understand that although moose look like big, wild cows, they’re insanely territorial and violent creatures if provoked. And that’s the conclusion I normally draw from these scenarios. That if you’re raised in an environment that is more tolerant of wild animals, you’ll find out that bears aren’t cuddly and deer are kind of a nuisance.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Still, it’s not a good thing Harambe was shot. The best outcome would have been a tea party between the boy and Harambe. Thanks Disney, for screwing up a number of people’s expectations when it comes to animal / human relationships.

 

I own a dog, by proxy. My girlfriend came with a dog. So my extension, I now have a dog.

You see, I didn’t have a dog growing up as a kid. I had a cat. His name was Terminator, and he was a fluffy little badass. He wasn’t a very affectionate cat, and spend most of his time outside, killing mice and other small creatures. He’d bring us a trophy every once and a while, laying it out on the welcome mat for everyone. For the most part though, he kept to himself. So my background with animals is limited to a cat you rarely saw, and was capable of looking after himself.

This is Pookie Bear.

The baddest dog on the planet.

It’s a teddy bear pomeranian, probably the most adorable kind of dog you could ever possibly own. And the little shit head knows she’s adorable. That’s the look of an animal who knows how to tug heart strings. Even though she’s thirteen years old, she still acts like a puppy for the most part. And it’s usually so she can get people to give her something.

Pookie didn’t like me very much at first. The last boyfriend and Pooks didn’t get along so well, he refused to take it out for walks, saying it was emasculating. So the dog was wary of me at first. At one point, I had to take away a chew toy from her, because it was bed time. In an act of pure defiance, Pookie looked me straight in the eye, turned around, and still staring me down, peed right in front of me. I mean, this dog straight up just defiled the soil in front of me. It was the biggest ‘fuck you’ I’ve ever received, and it came from a dog.

When I first moved to Lethbridge, I was looking for a job, so I spent a fair amount of time at home. So I started taking Pooks for walks. This seemed like the natural thing to do. You have a dog, you walk it. It was winter at the time, and Pomeranians are basically little Husky dogs, so she seemed to like it. After a few months, Pookie started warming up to me.

Now when I leave, Pookie sits by the door, waiting for me to come home.

Visual proof that I do not have a heart made of stone.

Even though me and Pookles are getting along just fine now, I still wouldn’t really consider myself a dog person. I like this dog, but I still find other dogs kind of obnoxious. Pookie rarely barks, is house trained, and spends most of her day napping. She’s not a very good lap dog either, and won’t spend any time cuddling people. She’s basically a cat.

Pookie is getting old though. At thirteen, she’s a senior citizen, and has already gone through a major operation to remove a tumour. She’s going deaf, and we think she’s starting to go blind as well. The worst thing about owning an animal is you’re probably going to outlive it. But, she’s still in good health, has most of her teeth, and I can still take her for walks. So she’s got some time.

A year ago, I would have told you I’d never own a dog. And now, here I am, taking the little fluffy ball of jerk out for walks in the park. The once frosty heart of Mr. Charlton is thawing, and it’s partly due to a dog that gave me the largest metaphorical middle finger I have ever received. And maybe that’s why I like her so much. Out of all the insults that have ever been tossed in my direction, from friends and foes alike, no one else has pissed right in front of me while maintaining eye contact.

Bravo, Pookie Bear. You are officially the biggest asshole I know.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. How own Earth can you call walking a Pomeranian emasculating? It’s the manliest dog on the planet. Let’s say I’m taking the dog for a walk, and I run into a bear. Now, if I had a pitbull or a german shepard, they would help me ward off the bear. With a tiny dog, like a Pomeranian or a toy poodle, not only do I have to fight a bear, but now I have to defend the dog as well. And that is way manlier.

***TINY SPOILERS AHEAD***

I recently saw the film Zootopia. Before I continue, I have to say I enjoyed the movie immensely. I thought it was well written, funny, and the animation was great. What I thought would be a standard Disney flick turns out to be a clever buddy cop movie. If you haven’t had a chance to see it, go check it out.

The story follows our heroine, Judy Hopps, a rabbit who wants to be a police officer in Zootopia, the metropolis a train ride away from the farm she grew up on. The problem is, she’s a rabbit, and there’s never been a rabbit on the Zootopia police force. With grit and determination, she manages to secure a spot on the force. When she arrives, she finds that she’s not really a member of the team, and is given parking ticket duty. What Judy soon discovers is she’s only there as a political campaign stunt, and the other police would rather not have her aboard. Still determined, she sets out on fighting crime whenever she sees it.

Enter Nick Wilde. He’s the smooth talking, charismatic fox. He’s a con artist, melting down large ice cream treats for elephants and selling them back to hamsters at a considerable markup. Judy catches him in the act, and through a few loopholes, is able to pin something on Nick unless he can help Judy with a crime. And that’s where the buddy cop film comes into play.

There were the number of usual questions that arose from watching the film though. The usual “Can this world actually exist?” Right off the bat, the city of Zootopia was separated into four quadrants. The desert, the jungle, the arctic, and the regular area. There’s massive heaters to keep the desert hot and dry, and there’s gigantic air conditioners to make the arctic cold and wintery. To make this happen, Zootopia’s energy bill has to be through the roof. The carbon footprint must be outrageous.

How does their economy function? Elephants are charged enormous prices for ice cream, while smaller creatures get away with paying a fraction of the price. How does this work? Do larger animals get more money for doing the same job? Is there some sort of Zootopia subsidy that makes it possible for an elephant to live on a hamster’s wage? Throughout the movie, all the animals seem to be segregated.

How can the carnivores survive without eating meat? Nobody throws down a burger or a steak in the movie. It’s mentioned a number of times that predator and prey used to follow the natural norm, but society has blossomed and there’s no one eating meat. How can that be? Lion’s still are carnivores, as are wolves, foxes, otters. Are there intelligent cows, and then regular cows they eat? Who determines where to draw the line?

But the most important question for adults appeared when it became apparent that the two main characters, Judy the bunny and Nick the fox, were flirting with each other. A lot. These animated pair have more chemistry than most regular people I know. So the question popped up. Can judy and Nick have bunny / fox hybrids? Would they just have some bunnies and some foxes instead? Is breeding even possible, and would they be forced to adopt? For all the films messages, like, “You can be whatever you want to be”, all the films couples were portrayed as same species. Otters got married to Otters, Shrews got married to Shrews. All the pairing were animal-normative. Is inter-species coupling in Zootopia frowned upon? Is there an underground civil rights movement happening in Zootopia the film doesn’t mention? Will the sequel bring into the focus of this power struggle?

“Mr. Charlton, why on Earth are you getting worked up about a silly movie for kids?” Aha, now that’s the question for the ages. What made this movie seem so bizarre is that it never really felt like a kids film. It felt like an honest to God buddy cop film with animals. Most of the themes were pretty serious. There was some jokes thrown in for kids, but as a film, it bucked the rules. Most of the time, with animated films like this, you get a children’s film with a few adult jokes sprinkled in. This was the opposite. It was an adult movie with kids jokes in it.

It’s still an enjoyable movie for all ages. But Disney, if you’re going to make a film with a lot of adult tones, keep in mind that you might get a lot of adult questions.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. And goddamnit Disney, stop giving your animals bedroom eyes. There’s enough confused furries as it stands.

On April 15th, 2014, Bermuda shorts day, the last day of class for students at the University of Calgary, Matthew de Grood entered a house party in the Brentwood area that was winding down. Inside the house there was 23 year old Kaitlin Perras, 27 year old Lawrence Hong, 23 year old Josh Hunter, 21 year old Zackariah Rathwell, and 22 year old Jordan Segura. Matt was only 24 himself at the time. Matt grabbed a ten inch kitchen knife and stabbed all five of the pre-mentioned victims. All five of the young, promising students ended up dying from their wounds. It’s the deadliest mass murder in the city of Calgary’s history.

On May 25th, 2016, over two years later, Matthew de Grood was found not criminally responsible (NCR) for the murders. Two of the three expert witnesses suggest that de Grood leaned towards schizophrenia, and all three believe that he was suffering from a psychotic episode at the time of the stabbings. The question now remains. Was the NCR verdict correct?

The events that transpired were during a psychotic episode, keep that in mind. Matt de Grood thought he was an alien fighting werewolves, vampires and members of the Illuminati when the attack happened. He was under the impression the world was coming to an end. He bought a garlic supplement from the Safeway where he worked the night of the murders. Before the attack, he texted his parents a few bizarre messages. They became worried, and the father, a former investigator for the police, went looking for him, while his mother sent an alert to the authorities. They were concerned he had become suicidal.

Up until two months before the attacks, Matt was an exemplary student at the University of Calgary, and employed at nearby Safeway in the produce department. His boss described him as “… a really nice guy. He was very caring to people, an all around good person”. Two months before the attack, his co-workers noted he became paranoid, and started acting irrationally.

Matthew de Grood gave a statement via his lawyer, saying how deeply sorry and apologetic he was for the deaths of the five people who lost their lives two years ago. I’m not certain if Matt actually understands the gravity of his situation since the attack, due to his condition. While it is possible that, with time and treatment, Matthew de Grood could be reinstated into society, there’s also the possibility that he will remain in a psychiatric health facility for the rest of his life.

NCR states that a person is not responsible for the crime that occurred. The NCR defense isn’t concerned with person’s current mental state, but rather the stare of the perpetrator when then offence took place. The NCR verdict isn’t a failure of our judicial system. What it highlights, however, is our societies failure to recognize and seek treatment for those who are suffering from mental health issues.

I’ve heard comments that some people wish to have Matt locked away for the rest of his life. Others want him put away in jail. I’ve heard some people talking about the death penalty.

We can’t bring back the people who lost their lives on that tragic night. The only thing we can do is move forward, and our actions today will pave the way for future tragedies. Matt de Grood didn’t murder five people on that night. Mental illness did. The decision the courts made was the right one. If we don’t examine this man, if we don’t question him, learn from him, study him, and medicate him, then we are doomed to repeat this tragedy. We need to start learning the signs, recognizing when someone is losing their grip on reality. This will happen again unless we start to take mental illness seriously.

Placing the blame on Matt for the murders is akin to placing the blame on a cancer patient for getting sick. Matt suffers from an illness. It’s not a well-known illness, defining it has been difficult, with the three expert witnesses not coming to a conclusion as to what he suffers from, but he does have something terribly wrong with him. Matt wasn’t on drugs at the time, he wasn’t drunk. There’s nothing to pin on Matt, except that he’s crazy. That he’s mentally ill.

These things happen, and they will continue to happen until society as a whole starts treating mental health issues seriously. This is something that affects everyone, our society as a whole, not just the person who suffers from it. If you’re interested in justice for the victims, understand the problem isn’t going to go away if we locked de Grood up and throw away the key. We can only honor those who were killed by making a conscious effort to learn why it happened in the first place. Calling someone crazy or sick isn’t going to cut it.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s.

Kaitlin Perras

Lawrence Hong

Joshua Hunter

Zackariah Rathwell

Jordan Segura

If you sincerely want to honour them, then support those who are looking for a reason as to why it happened, and how this sort of thing can prevented in the future. Looking for punishment isn’t going to make your world any safer.

 

 

“Beer, it’s the best damn drink in the world.”

Jack Nicholson

Beer has been around as long as human civilization. When human beings gave up the nomadic life of hunting and gathering, and chose instead to settled down and farm, they started making beer with the grains they were growing. Although wine came shortly afterwards, beer is considered by most to be the oldest of alcoholic beverages. And wine, for a very long time, was considered the drink of choice for those who could afford it.

We’re living in a golden age for beer and wine. There’s never been a period in history where alcohol was made to the standards that it is today. Both wine and beer are made in the same fashion. You let a bunch of food sit around for a while until it turns into hooch. Beer was made from fermenting cereals, and wine was made from fermenting grapes. Yeast, the active bacteria that eats sugar and defecates alcohol, is found in the air, and will actively begin to ferment fruits and grains under the right conditions. Today, yeast is added to both wine and beer process, to speed up and control the procedure.

The point I’m trying to make here is this; the kind of alcohol people drank for thousands of years was rotting food. And human beings couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Our entire species owes it’s formation to booze. My guess is, rotting grapes tasted quite a bit better than rotting wheat mash. Wine was seen as the drink of the gods, while beer was given to slaves.

Even in the twentieth century, wine was the drink of the wealthy and the establishment. Beer was for the blue collared working man. Wine enthusiasts would prattle on about vintages, regions, terroirs, sniffing and sipping on wines from France and Italy. Classes could be taken, and certifications could be earned. Wine sommeliers earned their living by waxing poetic about their drink of choice, claiming that certain wines should be paired with certain foods. Beer was the drink the mechanics and the plumbers would crack open after a long days work. Beer usually came in one flavor, Beer flavor. That’s recently changed.

There’s always been craft beers, beers that were brewed by Trappist monks, beer that was creating with insane hop flavors, but these stayed out of the public eye for most of the twentieth century. We now have access to a wide range of beers, from black stouts to citrusy white beers. Beer pairings have started popping up, suggesting complex Belgian style beers with red meats and Pilsners with certain cheeses. Beer snobs have been growing like weeds.

This is great news for beer drinkers, because that means there are a whole slew of new and exciting new beers to drink. This is also great news for wine.

Wine producers, believe it or not, have been trying to shed the notion that you need to be knowledgeable about wine in order to enjoy it. This imaginary wine boundary has prevented wine makers from tapping into a larger market. The people who grow wine grapes and bottle the result don’t want to limit their customer base to a select few, who claim some sort of magic knowledge is required to appreciate their product. They want everyone drinking wine. Who cares if the Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t pair with the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner? Put it on the table anyways. There’s too much bullshit surrounding wine that’s based on pretentious clowns trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I should know. I’ve taken a sommelier class in wine.

Right after I did, I was the wine expert among many of my friends and family. I’d get phone calls, asking me if they should crack open the bottle they bought, or if they should lock it away in the cellar. I had to tell people they weren’t wasting their wine if they paired it with something other than goat’s cheese and children’s tears. When presented with a wine as a gift, I had to reassure my friends that yes, the wine they got me was a good wine.

So I’ve put together a little list for people, so we can bury a few myths about wine.

1. Most wine was made to be drunk right away. There’s a couple of wines that benefit from sitting around for a while, like an Italian Barolo. Unless you’re asking for something specific or you’re a wine collector, that bottle of wine is probably safe to drink right now.
2. Pairing is nice, but unless you’re also a food snob as well, you’re probably not going to notice. Same goes with beer.
3. Go to a nice liquor store and talk to someone who works there. I can’t stress this enough. That’s what I do when I want something special. I talk to a person who’s made it their living to sell wine.

Will beer become snobbier than wine though? Never, in my opinion. The snootiness of wine is too implanted in our culture to easily shake, but I’m hoping that wine continues to become more accessible to people in the future. Booze isn’t nearly as classy as the advertisements would have you believe. Just remember, you’re drinking the urine of microbes in order to get your slant on.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I love both wine and beer equally. No preference here.

p.s.s. If someone offers you a beer and you accept, you forgo the right to reject the beer being offered. If they hand you a Lucky, then you drink the Goddamn Lucky. Learn some damned manners and be a gracious guest.

 

 

There was a television show back in the nineties called ‘SeaQuest DSV’ (the DSV meant deep sea vehicle). In the near future of 2018, humanity has all but exhausted natural resources on the surface, and now look to the vast oceans to provide a new source of food and energy. Underwater colonies are setup, and the crew of the submarine ‘SeaQuest’ travel the deep blue solving issues and discovering mysteries. The show had a Star Trek feel to it, and included an incredibly smart dolphin that could communicate with the crew. It wasn’t a bad show, but only lasted two and a half seasons.

With NASA getting people fired up to head to Mars, and with Astrophysicists like Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Dr. Stephen Hawking amping up the hype, some people are left wondering why we aren’t headed to into the depths of the oceans? More than 95% of the oceans still remain undiscovered. If there is that much of our own Earth left to discover, why aren’t we hearing more about it?

Right off the bat, it’s worth mentioning the two frontiers aren’t at odds with each other. Money that doesn’t get invested into space exploration isn’t automatically going into deep sea research, that’s not how any government functions. Money is being invested into exploring the oceans, and there are agencies like the NOAA (Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which currently fund the vessel Okeanos, which is the only ship being funded by the United Stated government to map and explore the oceans for the advancement of knowledge.

There’s also a number of oil companies that are consistently mapping out and searching for resources underneath the ocean floors. There is the very good argument, especially after the BP Deepwater Horizon spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico, that drilling in the ocean is damaging to the ocean’s environment. What you need to remember is that science rarely gets any funding unless there is some sort of profit to be made, or issue to be solved. Space exploration is becoming big again, because there are people who want to monetize the stars. Cancer research funding is incredibly political, and labs across the planet are constantly trying to get more funding, whether it’s from the government, large corporations, or small donations made by people like you and me.

The real boundary for deep sea exploration is the actual physics of going that far under the surface of the ocean. Going to the bottom of the ocean is far more dangerous than going into space. Space exists as a vacuum. Once you’re out there, the strain on the orbiting vessel is constant. With water, every inch you descend, the pressure to the exterior to the submersible increases. The deepest recorded manned vessel was the Trieste at 10,911 metres below sea level, and was accomplished in 1960 by Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh. They explored the Challenger Deep, a part of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world’s oceans.

The other issue for research and reconnaissance is the lack of light. Light from the surface stops penetrating at a depth of roughly a 1000 metres. Most of the ocean is covered in this depth. To truly observe and collect visual information, high powered lights are required. This poses two problems. The lights aren’t able to look very far underneath the ocean. Even with lighting, sight is reduced to a few metres. As well, the life that exists at these depths isn’t used to light. This could change the behavior of the life at these depths, and render the studies of marine life to be skewed.

We’ve done a pretty good job of mapping the ocean, so we have an understanding of the topography done below. Will we ever colonize the ocean floor, as seen in dozens of sci-fi movies and television shows? Probably not. It’s way too expensive to build and live at the bottom of the ocean. Not to mention how dangerous it is. There’s no point. For anyone hoping to move to Andrew Ryan’s undersea paradise, free from the shackles of government and religion, then I hate to burst your bubble. If the supply of oil starts to dwindle, you can be sure a lot of companies will be sending robotic scouts down there.

Truthfully, I’m hoping people stay away from the depths of the ocean. The last thing our planet needs is a bunch of Kaiju running around.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Hey, when you’re writing a post everyday, you can phone it in every now and again.

 

If you follow me on a somewhat regular basis, you’ll know I recently downloaded a browser extension called ‘Fluff Busting Purity’, or FB Purity. The goal of FB Purity is to allow people to fully customize their Facebook experience. You have the opportunity to remove game requests, shared stories, linked articles, and more. You can change the layout, the font, you can modify a lot about the whole look. It really does improve Facebook, especially if you use it on a regular basis to keep up with friends and family. The question is, why is this extension necessary? Why have the changes Facebook made over the last few years degraded the user experience?

Facebook is free to use. There’s no fee to use it, and the likelihood of the site charging money is non-existent. At the same time, Facebook is worth money. Quite a bit of money in fact. It’s worth over three hundred billion dollars. The money that Facebook generates isn’t from the users of the site, but rather the advertisers selling ads. Much like Google, Facebook doesn’t sell products, it sells ad space. Like the newspapers of yesterday, Facebook’s main goal, as a business, is to sell ads. Unlike newspapers though, content isn’t provided by a team of journalists or reporters. It’s provided by the users.

This is one of the problems with Facebook. The reason many creative people, musicians, artists, comedians, and movie makers, have beef with Facebook is the method in which allow you to share content. Facebook boasts over eight million video views a day. In the first quarter of 2015, 725 of the top 1000 videos on Facebook were stolen from Youtube. If the video is viewed on Youtube, the creator of the video gets reimbursed with cash. If the video gets played through the Facebook player, the creator gets squat. Now, this is obviously an issue, because the people who make the content will have less of an incentive to create more content. And it’s incredibly easy to steal content or ideas, just like I did. all the information I pulled was from this video.

Luckily enough, even if you watch this video from my site, the person who made it still gets a view.

With FB Purity, I get the option to turn off all of Facebook’s videos, but it still allows me to view Youtube videos that have been posted to Facebook. I get to still watch videos from Facebook, as long as they give the original Youtube link. There’s also the option to turn off the autoplay that is normally turned on when you go to Facebook. Most of the changes made to Facebook are to link you directly with advertisers.

I’ve read numerous posts in regards to the changes Facebook keeps making to their site, and most of them are negative. Facebook makes it difficult to stop the inflow of garbage to your feed. You have to reject every specific application or game request, it seems. FB Purity solves a lot of the issues that have appeared in recent years, allowing you to flat out purge a number of items that are clogging up your Facebook page.

Facebook claimed that FB Purity violates it’s terms of service, and they’re probably right. At the same time, FB Purity still has a Facebook fan page, here https://www.facebook.com/fluffbustingpurity. It won’t harm your computer in any way, and Facebook isn’t going to come after you if you install it. If you’re one of the many that have become dissatisfied with Facebook recently, then you will at least want to check it out.

Even though Facebook continues to grow, and currently has over a billion subscribers, most the people signing up for Facebook happen to be over thirty. Facebook has a hard time attracting young people to it’s service, as their parents tend to have the service as well. Teenagers are much more interested in sites like Instagram for their social media needs. Facebook is seen as a place where old people hang out.

Will Facebook be around forever? I’m not sure, but I’d place my money on it going the way of the Dodo. Social media has been around for only a short amount of time, and before Facebook there was Myspace. Google has cemented itself in the age of information by creating an extremely powerful search algorithm, one that has changed the way our information is connected. Facebook… allows us to connect to each other in a manner that’s more efficient than phone calls and emails? Facebook needs to reinvent itself to become cool again, because the last demographic in the tech world you want to attract are the old fogies. What Facebook desperately needs is a Facelift.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’m not saying that Youtube is devoid of content theft, they have their own unique problems.