Mammoth Find Reveals New Facts About The Ice Age!

And all the people who truly cared, were actually at the dig site. Presumably, digging (or, if they're clever, watching other people dig while they "nurse a back injury they got in an intense game of racquetball earlier in the week.")

I don't mean to imply that fossils and prehistoric life are not interesting. In fact, I think it's fascinating that before us there were thousands of cycles of life, different and unique types of life, and even before them, thousands more. It lends a weight to our lives, a gravity, instills an urgency. It helps us find purpose, or to want to in the first place. Ancient remains always say the same thing, to me, there is more to life than survival. Life is transient. We will not always be here. Demand the best (or at least medium-rare) and don't be afraid to send it back if it's crappy. And tip your waitresses (or waiters, depending on how politically correct you feel the need to be.)

But fossils are not new. Don't take this literally, obviously they're incredibly old, but rather, the act of finding fossils is not new. It happens all the time, and has happened all the time, since the first time a human took a rock, and dug into the ground. (An instinct we still have today, we even invented a vehicle that carries around a giant shovel for us. Because digging is awesome.)

And yet, archeologists (and the community of other ists who refused to leave the sandbox) are consistently surprised when they find new fossils. As if, the idea that the planet had life before us is as amazing and new now as it was then, then being the beginning of recorded history.

This is evidence that my theory about scientists is closer to correct then I thought it was when I originally posited it (that is to say, when I first told the joke.) Scientists are essentially just rather large goldfish in human suits, large periods of lulls, with bursts of excitement, followed by an immediate forgetfulness that is so full, so utterly complete, that it mimics a Brazilian wine hangover. I can't go into my room for ten minutes without finding something I lost three years ago, and yet, the scientific community goes into a "fossil frenzy" every time we find a mastodon bone.

If a man (or woman, equal rights, people) comes stomping into town on the lead bull of a wooly-mammoth herd, I would be surprised. I would expect the scientific community to begin immediate and furious shenanigans. Because this would be awesome. But digging through last weeks trash and being surprised to find chicken bones is just plain silly.

And I know what you're thinking. "Dave, it's not that they found a mammoth fossil, it's that they found the fossils of twenty-two (or some odd) different species on this one site!"

Because in the modern world, animals don't live together in complex ecosystems of more than one or two types of animals at a time. What a fascinating, and new, discovery!

All jokes and mocking aside. The find will give us knowledge we desperately need (to know the next time we are quizzed on the ecosystems of the Ice Age.) And congratulations to all the ists out there who are involved in the dig.

And the construction worker who didn't run over it with a bulldozer, way to keep your cool, Construction Guy. The ists thank you.

Candor and a Higer Education (or at least the Possibility of one...)

There's that word again: "candor."

I'm kind of sick of it. It's not that truthfulness, or as I like to think of it, truthiness, bothers me, it's that...it's kind of frightening.

Of course, it's situational, for example, when the barista (a rather attractive girl) brings two free drinks to me in one day because "I messed this one up." or "I made extra, whoops." I'm glad for her honesty. Had she just smiled and walked away I could have spent the next three weeks mooning over her and wondering what exactly these drinks meant. Does she like me? Should I like her? How do I bring her free drinks?

However, when my mother was honest about giving me Christmas gifts because of the social morays and the religious establishment that require her to dote upon her children, well I could have done without that. (And did, my mother is an absolute doll, and would never say that. But if she had that would have really sucked.)

Now to the point: To speak with candor, I am afraid. Not in that pull the sheets up over my head, hide behind my mother's skirts kind of way. Not even in the go buy a shotgun kind of way. But in that, freeze in your tracks, unsure of what to do next, kind of way.

You see, this week has seen me sign up for the GRE (short for: oh my God, I Really have to get moving with my life Exam.) and begin researching what I want to go to school for.

So far I've come up with:
Journalism: Because I don't want a real job, and I figure I can just do this, but have credentials.
Communications: Because not enough schools have Journalism, and I don't want a real job, and I figure I can...
Political Science: Because I hate myself.
Underwater Basket Weaving: It's better than open-air basket weaving any day of the week, yo.
Scriptwriting: Because I want to be popular with people my mother would hate.
Womens Studies: Someone has to understand women. (Right?)

I really only got anywhere with researching the Journalism and or Communications schools, and I was fascinated but what I found: I'm ridiculously under qualified. (You see, candor is scary.)

But, on a high note, the schools that offer these programs (outside of Plain Jane UCF) are in really awesome places.

New York University offers programs in Writing and Mass Communications // Media Relations for people who are much smarter and wealthier than I am.

New Orleans University offers a Journalism and Communications for people who are much more fun than I am.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas offers a top ranked Communications school for people with much more self-discipline than I have.

The University of Alabama has a (reportedly) great program for people that like Alabama.

England...well apparently every school in England offers a Journalism Masters, because America doesn't and the Brits love thumbing their collective noses at us.

Newcastle University, Australia: Where I want to go because anything with Newcastle in the name has to be amazing.

Now I just have to write a letter of purpose to any and all of these schools. Which could be really fascinating. What am I going to say? "I like trying to make people laugh. But I cant guarantee it." I think that line is missing a certain academic quality.

This is what I imagine my letter would look like, if I were to be truthful.

Dear Dean of Students, and or Head of the Journalism Department,

My name is David Start and I want to be a humorist. Seeing as you offer no classes in this subject, I would very much like to get into your school's illustrious program so I can sit next to a stronger (in regards to academics because, I mean, come on.) student and give his or her project a running commentary and wrap up any and all assignments with an in-depth comedic analysis, while also doggedly trying to make any and all of my prospective Professors chuckle and or kick me out of his or her class due to my (hopefully funny) antics.

Please let me into your school. I promise I will only waste twenty to twenty-two hours of every day on frivolous ideas and awkwardly timed jokes. (I won't even post all of these on the internet, because that is perilously close to work.)

If you don't accept me, could you please send this letter, my resume and my transcripts over to the Head of the Political Science department?

If I can't learn to get paid for my humorous take on the World, I'd really love to get paid sit around and talk shit about politicians all day. (That's called a Political Correspondent or Analyst, I believe.)

Thank you for your time,
David Start

P.S. Enclosed in this letter is a whoopie cushion and a webcam. You know what to do.

P.P.S. If you are possibly a Dean and or Head of Department, even a Professor of a school I may or may not attend, I absolutely do not feel this way about obtaining a higher education.

P.P.P.S. Unless you feel that way, then I totally do.

You Can't Cry Upside Down

It has taken me years of searching and thousands of (someone else’s) dollars, but I have finally found it, it being the answer to the World’s sadness. Crying is officially a thing of the past (so long as someone strong is nearby.) My sister has recently broken up with (and subsequently gotten back together with, broken up with again, and reunited again) her boyfriend. My sister is at the age where this is not out of the ordinary, in fact it is expected (we took bets, I owe my Dad something I’m sure.)

My sister is a teenager (as you might have guessed) and as such, is incredibly hormonal, to the point of ridiculousness. I managed to go my entire life without being around women that cried (excepting my mom around anything resembling a small child doing, quite frankly, anything), and then my life exploded into a river of tears, seemingly, out of nowhere. I’ve since found myself distinctly lacking the crying girlfriend, but she was immediately (and quite forcefully) replaced by the teary eyed sister. She can cry about anything. My mother wants her to do laundry, but tells her more than once? She cries. Her boyfriend can’t come over on a Saturday because he has a baseball game? She cries. She got a bad grade on a test she didn’t study for? She cries. It’s raining? She cries. The show Doc got canceled? She cries. (It was canceled six years ago.)

Yesterday, during one of her spouts, I went a different direction with my reaction (insert something about a forest and a path less traveled), I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. This may seem cruel at first, but imagine my surprise when…she stopped crying! I didn’t quite believe it so I kept her up there for awhile more to make sure my ears weren’t deceiving me. They weren’t! She said to me “David! Put me down, I can’t cry upside down!”

Victory.

Sweet, sweet victory.

I looked at my mother, and I could see that she too, had no idea what had just happened. She was as bewildered as my sister at my joy. “Don’t you see! Don’t you see!?” I yelled. “We’ve done it! The World will be a happy place!”

My mother cut to the core of the problem relatively quickly, “But, David,” she said, “just because people aren’t crying, doesn’t mean they’re happy.”

“But Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom,” I responded, “now we don’t have to hear their unhappiness.”

And then, I could see she finally understood.

She had raised an asshole.

“David,” my sister said, “put me down, I’m choking on my tears.”

A Debate about Gravity

My friend Michael is what one could call a "science enthusiast." One could actually say "science zealot" and not be too far off. But he occasionally finds me gems (and or fodder for my blog.) Like this one:

If you don't want to read it, I'll go ahead and explain it. A teachers assistant at the University of Wisconsin (for a Philosophy class, so let's not give him too hard of a time) was explaining Descartes to his students when he came up with a metaphor (incorrectly) using the moon, and of course (being a philosopher) a pen. (A writer would surely have used a Kindle, and hoped to see it float away, never to be thought of again, or, if he were Dave Barry, he would have used a toilet in his metaphor.)

The metaphor went as follows: "A pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, but it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon." The point of his simile was to show the class that things don't always happen the way we think they will. He should have launched into a rant about women and how this one time, he bought his girlfriend a beautiful gold necklace with a diamond heart in the center. And instead of thanking him she ran into her room and cried for two hours because the necklace reminded her of a heart her best friend in middle school drew for her right before she moved away never to be seen or heard from again and she still hasn't quite gotten over the trauma of the whole ordeal, but really baby, she said later, it was a thoughtful gift, and she never wore it and left him three months later, and the damn thing cost over two hundred dollars. (You see, sometimes things don't end up how you think they will class!) Instead, he told the students (essentially) that gravity doesn't exist on the moon.

The man who wrote this article, who went unnamed (he's a professor of physics now, so go him), raised his hand (and dropped his jaw) to question the TA. You see, due to the fact that the moon is, in fact, a rather large celestial body, it does have gravity. Actually, if you were to make a chart of it, the moon's gravity would come up somewhere between the seriousness a situation FOX news wants you to believe something is, and how serious the situation actually is.

When the TA was challenged with the question: "then why didn't the astronauts float away?" He replied, apparently with confidence, "Because they wore heavy boots." Oh of course, heavy boots.

A fun fact for any of you who haven't ever opened a 7th grade science book: In zero gravity, which this TA believes the moon to be in (based on his earlier pen assumption), weight not only doesn't matter, it doesn't exist. Strictly speaking it's only mass--remember that time in any space-set movie ever when the guy/girl in the space suit pushes the insanely heavy object away from his/her space craft with his/her broken pinky finger? By that logic (closer to factual), wearing heavy boots would only make it harder for the astronaut to board the spaceship in the first place.

The really inane part about all of this is that the professor (the one who wrote the article, not the Physics uninitiated Philosophy TA) later created a test involving that exact question (why didn't the astronauts on the moon land away--worse, it was multiple choice.) I won't go into the details (you can read the link), but suffice it to say, a higher number than expected failed (and a percentage even asked if material they hadn't studied for would be on the next test--because that was totally unfair.)

Now, you may be asking yourself: "Dave, why do you care? You're not a scientist and this isn't a "science blog." You're a humorist, or at best (or worst) a political satirist."

Well, questioning reader, the answer is simple: The people who answered this question wrong, well...they vote. And will continue to do so for the rest of my (and probably yours) life.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Yeah, now you're with me. Heavy boots indeed.

(I'd like to point out that I'm a super hypocrite. Not in regards to a basic understanding of gravity, but rather to the earlier comment about the Kindle. I so want one. It just seems easier. Downside? I'm pompous. I enjoy owning a library. A digital library doesn't impress literary women, no siree Bob.)

Cheesy Times at the Dave Effect

"Eat more cheese!" the man said to himself.
"No, wait..." he paused, looking in the mirror, "don't eat more cheese."
"Dude, it's just cheese."
"Stop talking to me like that! I can feel my arm hurting."
"That's just in your head!"
"Really?"
"No. It's probably you're heart. You eat entirely too much cheese..."
"But, but...you told me to.
"Of course I did. I work for the U.S.D.A and it's good for the economy."

This is a (possibly) real conversation had between a man (possibly) employed by the U.S.D.A. or Dairy Management (a government non-profit concerned with the growth of the dairy industry) and (possibly) himself.

I find the current out pouring of food advertisements interesting, and not just because I love to eat things that will eventually kill me, but also because they seem so similar. Almost as if Taco Bell, Dominoes, Burger King and all of their competitors were using the same recipe for success. Imagine my surprise when I found out they were: Dairy Management. The company that could be responsible for letting you get so much of your daily saturated fat (say 3/4 of your expected daily intake) so easily (say in one taco, or a few slices of pizza.)

Dairy Management has recently partnered with quite a few under performing companies, such as Dominoes, with the goal of improving the U.S. economy via the dairy market. And no one could argue that this has failed. In fact, it's so successful that it's starting to worry the U.S.D.A., the organization that commissioned the smaller Dairy Management group to begin operations on expanding the dairy industry in the first place.

Here's the problem as far as the U.S.D.A. sees it: Americans are getting fat. (I will use myself as a rather credible, if declining, example of this fact.)

Here's another problem as far as the U.S.D.A. sees it: Americans are getting poor. And still getting fat.

I guess at the point they realized this, the problem wasn't really theirs to solve anymore. In fact the difficulty probably lies in America's addiction to fast food, cafe beverages and various forms of sugary consumables, and the fact that a high percentage of these eats and treats are dairy doesn't mean that if dairy farmers and companies ceased producing absolutely anything unhealthy that American's would suddenly start eating better and jogging to work.

The problem isn't that we eat far too much cheese. This is not new information. We eat over three times as much cheese (and therefore saturated fats) now than we did in 1978. This didn't creep up on us or come out of left field. American kids were raised on the happy meal and this has had adverse effects (if you want to talk like a lawyer.) What I mean by that is kids are getting fat. Childhood obesity is never funny. Except in the Goonies. And Goldberg from the Mighty Ducks, or the catcher from the Sandlot, or...(what is wrong with us?)

The truly befuddling part of the whole enterprise is how the problem should be dealt with. Obviously the average American can not be allowed to decide for themselves, advertisement executives and medical professionals have seen to that, so the government has to step in somewhere. (Right? Vote on it. I'll be the guy at the polls, I'll be the bearded guy sitting alone.)

What is truly interesting is the double standard that the government has had to pursue. On the one hand, the government is responsible (or at least held responsible) for the economy. While at the same time, is also responsible (held) for the health and well being of its people.

In effect, we've forced the government to create an organization that pushes a product to help the economy, create something to sell, companies to sell it, etc., and watch the money finally begin flowing into the market again. While at the very same time, creating an organization (within the same branch: Agricultural in this case) that deals with the negative results of what they're pushing.

The U.S.D.A and Dairy Management's relationship is a lot like what would happen if drug dealers invested in rehab centers.