November 20, 2007 at 4:07 am (utopia)
Tags: capitalism, cartoon, communism, utopia
While searching the word “utopia” on YouTube, I ran across this adorable anti-communist propaganda piece from the late 40’s.
Dr. Utopia, the snake-oil salesman tries to sell his miracle cure, “Ism” to the disgruntled Laborer, Manager, Politician and Farmer.
November 19, 2007 at 11:36 pm (rant, skepticism)
Tags: allergan, beauty, botox, cosmetics, eyelashes, plastic surgery, skepticism
As a woman, I am often compelled by some sort of either genetic predisposition or years of societal programming, to stare critically at myself in the mirror.
My thighs: too fat. My Belly: too soft. My breasts: too small. My nose: too big. My hair: too blah. My skin: too oily. Why do I do this? I don’t know. Nor do I really care too much about these problems. Other than running three times a week, eating lots of healthy food and taking good care of my hair and skin, there’s nothing I can do about my body’s little imperfections. Or is there?
The medical community has long been able to correct certain flaws with surgery. Breast augmentation, liposuction, facial reconstruction and laser eye surgery are all quite common practices. However, as the recent death of Kanye West’s mother will testify, these procedures are still quite dangerous. It is surgery after all.
Another path offered by the medical community more recently is pharmaceuticals. Read the rest of this entry »
November 16, 2007 at 3:57 pm (hippies, skepticism)
As promised, here is my rebuttal to my own post.
I would like to address certain points made by myself in the controversial blog post,
Why I dislike hippies (a rant)
First, I would like to address the use of the term “hippie”.
According to the dictionary that came with my computer, a hippie is defined as:
“A person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.”
By this definition, one could define both my husband and myself as hippies.
The author does not make a clear enough definition of what a hippie is. Instead she assumes that the reader shares her definition of a hippie as a bleeding heart, new-age, namby-pamby vegetarian, who thinks that social change can still be made through marches and protests, and that patchouli is an acceptable deodorant. Read the rest of this entry »
November 16, 2007 at 2:39 pm (skepticism)
It has come to my attention somewhat that I may have started off on the wrong foot.
(And yes, I know, this blog is ugly, but it gives great head has a nice personality has a lot of heart!)
I made the mistake of posting a semi-clever/semi-childish rant that I trotted out from my old blog, so when I told people to check out my blog, they only saw that. I should have stuck with my original plan.
In the future I will try to stick to ranting about actually skeptical topics and babbling about my utopia.
Moving on, I would like to address something else which troubles me. Read the rest of this entry »
November 16, 2007 at 4:09 am (hippies, rant, skepticism)
This is the rant I mentioned in my previous post.
EDIT: Disclaimer: Please keep in mind, I was in a foul mood when I wrote this after dealing with some particularly annoying people. I don’t have a problem with ALL hippies, just certain attitudes I’ve noticed among some groups of hippies. I used to be one myself, after all. See the P.S. at the end.
EDITED AGAIN:
After much consideration, I have decided to simply link to the original rant in my old blog.
November 16, 2007 at 3:41 am (utopia)
So a few months ago I was reading a site about sustainable communities and I realised something: most sustainable communities are run by hippies.
Something that you should know about me is that I generally dislike hippies. I wrote about this in another blog of mine, and if I can find it I’ll repost it. It was pretty funny.
You see, there are a lot of things the hippies do right. For instance, hippies are generally concerned about the earth and are usually pacifists. I’m cool with that. Also, sometimes the drug thing is okay.
But I’m not here to rehash all the reasons I hate generally dislike hippies. I’m here to describe my utopia.
The site I was looking at (getting back on track here) suggested that to build your sustainable community you need to first sit down with all of the members of the community and set goals.
Since, so far, my community only consists of me, this is what I came up with (my skeptical utopia): Read the rest of this entry »
November 16, 2007 at 3:33 am (skepticism, utopia)
Hi.
I’m Liz and I’m a skeptic.
This is my blog. It’s called skept (as in skeptic) opia (as in utopia)
This is going to be a very sloppy entry since it is my first. Sure, it would be great to start off with a bang and be very showy with this, my 5th? 6th? attempt at a blog, but I’m not.
The mission statements for this blog are simple:
-To have a place to rant about skeptical topics.
-To have a place to ramble on and on about what my perfect world would be.
You are free to disagree with my view of the world, and I hope you will understand that I am free to mock you. It’s my blog and that’s my prerogative. So there.
However, if you share my view of a perfect world, I’d love to know. And perhaps you can help me make it so.
Lofty goals, yes. But this is just a first tiny step toward changing the world for the better, and isn’t that what we all want?
