Don't Just Label It - Understand It

Here's the thing, I used to think everyone understood certain things about how our food is produced, processed, stored, and transported. I realize now that I was assuming facts not in evidence. I throw myself on the mercy of the court and plead too many years of reading OMNI Magazine instead of socializing. I just didn't realize most people think the above question is reasonable, rather than quaintly naive and uninformed, mayhap even ignorant. You may have, like Bernie Sanders, wondered about this. I think there are three good reasons many reasonable people don't want mandatory label laws. 

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Research - No Lab Coat Required

I don't like to write too much about writing. It bores non-writers, and most writers have already heard it all. I'm not Stephen King or George R. R. Martin. No one cares about myprocess. But every now and then I feel the need to defend writers of all kinds. Yeah, I have a hero complex, I guess. I also feel the need to correct false information, no matter how well intended. And I love my fellow wordsmiths. So imagine what my reaction is every time a skeptical friend suggests that reading is not research.

Ok, to be fair, I am fully aware that they are referring specifically to people who think they can argue science with scientists based on a few hours of Google U. It's just that when you say people who do their research online, or in a library, are doing inferior research to those wearing white lab coats, you are doing a disservice to both groups. So, for my skeptical friends, and my many unskeptical friends and family, indulge me while I talk about research and its importance to writing.

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Not Gatorland World

While most of America is talking about the horrible events at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, residents of Kissimmee, Florida have another tragedy to contend with. Helicopters hover overhead, but they aren't looking for terrorists. As the rescue personnel swarm in, the white tents go up on manicured lawns and the news cameras are thrust into the faces of staff and guests of the happiest place on Earth. Today is not happy. Two nights ago, a two-year-old child was snatched from the beach while he played under the watchful eyes of his parents. He wasn't taken by a pedophile, and there is no hope of finding him alive in an abandoned military facility. This toddler has fallen victim to a predator whose ancestry goes back to a time before humans existed.

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Pots, Kettles, and Unscience

When Bill Maher says conservatives are more anti-science than liberals, what he’s really saying is, my science is better than their science, and the science I choose to disregard is less important than the science they choose to disregard. But it’s all the same science. Science is science. If you reject any of it, you reject the concept, the methodology, thus you reject it all.  You simply cannot claim that science sometimes is reliable and consistent. That just doesn’t compute. If you love science, you love all of it, you believe all of its findings… even when those findings really suck. You love it even when it makes your political candidate sound the right fool. You love it even when it makes your religion sound phony and hollow.  And you love it when it tells you that you have to stop doing something you enjoy, because it really is bad for you… or the planet. You love it when it's hard.

So with that said, allow me to point out that both liberals and conservatives seem to have jumped on the crazy train and headed out going “woo-woo”.

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Nerf Guns and Neophytes

Both these kids are smart, articulate, good looking, and media savvy. They’ve also both become representatives for a cause. And that’s what I want to talk about today. Remember when the girl who played Matilda wrote about how terrible it was for her fellow child actors? Remember how we all thought parents shouldn’t do that to their kids? Well, I don’t know, but I’m feeling a little dirty for the way these two kids have been adopted (or vilified) by opposing sides in very contentious debates. What does a twelve year old, or even a junior high school aged child know about politics, economics, health, regulatory policy, agriculture, big business, or the terrible media shit storm that comes when your video reaches a million hits? Well, they are finding out that last one. Unfairly, it seems to me.

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Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse those Fast Food Cups

Writers are generally a solitary lot. When we take a break from writing, we tend to turn to other activities that let us follow our own asocial paths. So, when the kiddo says I need to get out and talk to people more, I remember those old studies  that told us talking to plants makes them grow faster. It probably doesn’t, unless they’re talking to each other, but it may make it seem like they do. And it’s a great excuse to talk to yourself. I do that anyway, and a lot of other writers I’ve chatted with online say they do too, so why not have a ready excuse?

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Sick of Cancer Studies?

I was telling my mom about an idea I had for short story. “A scientist has discovered a way to live forever, by giving himself cancer.” This is, admittedly, a ridiculous idea, and just the sort to stretch the imagination. Perfect for a short story of the kind you’d see in Astounding or on the old Twilight Zone series, right? But my mom, being the down to Earth kind of person she is, threw me right out of my story and back to real life. “Oh, cancer. I’m sick of hearing about it. There’s a new study every day. One day something causes cancer, the next it cures it. Those scientists can’t make up their mind.”

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When a Writer Says They Are Researching–What’s Natural?

I know what nature is. I go hiking, caving, biking, swimming and camping. I’ve visited the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and the mighty Mississippi. I swam in the Black River and two of the Great Lakes. I’ve watched sunsets in Hawaii and Florida. I’ve caught lightning bugs and been startled by snakes. I’ve had poison ivy, and eaten wild blackberries. Doggone it, I know nature when I see it. You do too, right? So ok, what is it?

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