derek gulbranson

Wright: Different not Deficient

Wright gave a speech to the NCAAP, it's actually pretty good. He's actually a pretty good speaker and even funny sometimes. He speaks four languages. Who knew.

So I was reading the news and there was talk about Wright giving a controversial speech which caused Obama to disavow his comments. Is this it? This can't be it? There are people who are offended by this speech? Who are they? When was the last time they left their house? How can someone being offended by a speech who's theme is different, not deficient? Because they didn't think some of the differences noted were PC enough?

News flash! As a general rule, white people don't have rhythm, not like black people. This is not news if you've ever been to a predominately white concert and a predominately black concert. True, some white people can dance and some black people can't, but by and large white people can't dance and black people have way more rhythm. It's not deficient, it's just different. What's the problem? Please remove your head from your Bible for a moment and look around.

The Story of Stuff

Amazing. Planned obsolescence. 99% of the stuff we produce ends up in a landfill within 6 months. WTF, that's complete insanity, if not immoral. For every 1 trash can full of stuff we throw away, 70 trash cans full of waste was created to make that stuff. The US has 5% of the world's population but uses 30% of its resources and creates 30% of its waste. If everyone in the world consumed and wasted at the rate of Americans, we'd need 5 planets. We only have one.

It seems we are the problem.

There's a better quality version at the StoryofStuff.com

My face wash from the Body Shop contains reproductive toxins. WTF!

Plastic, Plastic, Everywhere is Plastic

I've heard of this place in the ocean where all of our plastic supposedly goes but I'd never really seen pictures of it so I wasn't sure it was real. These guys thought the same thing so they got a boat and went out there and made a pretty good documentary about it. Gross. My favorite quote, "I think we've really fucked up and we're all gonna burn in hell for this." Made me laugh.

Garbage Island - Part 1 of 12

Just try and live without plastic though. Discover Magazine had several articles this month about plastics, one about how the chemicals in some plastics cause feminization and another, "Think you can live with out plastic?"

The answer is basically, you can't. Plastic is everywhere. Your clothes are plastic. Your mouse is plastic. Even your paper milk carton has a plastic lining. 7 billion pounds per year and that's just polycarbonate. Every single piece of food you buy comes in plastic, possibly leaching hormone-like chemicals into your food. It really is every single piece of food too, think about it. Cereal, meat, cheese, canned food, chips, everything. Fruit is about the only thing that doesn't come in plastic, and a lot of people will put that in a least one plastic bag when they buy it. Wait, Pasta Roni does not come in plastic, it just has a cardboard box and the special seasoning pack has what looks like kind of metal lining. It probably has plastic though. Everything else comes in plastic though, except fresh fruit and veggies, .. and eggs depending on the cartoon.

One thing I can do about it is not use plastic bags anymore. I bought this small little reusable bag that fits in my coat pocket and it's great. It's way stronger than the plastic or paper bags you get from the store and it's not a pain to carry it around. It stays in my coat so I have it when I need it. It's made of nylon, but at least I only need one. That's plastic bags down, now I gotta figure out how to not get all this other plastic.