JolieSimons.com

I’ve just learned the sad news that George Carlin passed away. He was 71.

Carlin had a chat with my husband backstage at a concert once. George was performing at our college’s performing arts theater. George was waiting around for his showtime and my husband was doing some security, a boring job that amounted to keeping people from coming in a certain door. My husband had his homework in hand, a book of short stories.

George, who couldn’t have been nicer, signed a record for our mutual friend, talked to my husband about literature, and reccommended a book that my husband loved, the short stories of Breece D’J Pancake. This was, apparently, one of George Carlin’s favorite authors.

Everyone else might remember George Carlin from the seven words you can’t say on TV or from his movie roles in Dogma, Jersey Girl or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Still others will remember Carlin as a counterculture icon with an ascerbic tongue, a witty pen, and a knack for knowing what’s funny.

Words can’t describe how much the pioneering comic will be missed among fans of movie, comedy, or the counterculture.

The first album in three years to have debut-week sales at over a million physical copies–as in CD’s–has reminded us that the music industry is truly dead. Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III just had some bang-up sales this past week, surpassing the million-copy mark. Sales like that haven’t been seen since 50 Cent’s The Massacre three years ago.

I’ll put this in perspective for those who aren’t hip to what the kids are listening to these days: Lil Wayne and 50 Cent are rappers and this is a huge indicator of the change in the music industry. The only music that’s selling well is niche music like hip-hop, contemporary country, and the occasional indie rock disk. This explains why the Billboard charts are often littered with the likes of Death Cab for Cutie and Taylor Swift, the teenage contemporary country phenom. That’s not to say that people no longer like more mainstream formats like modern rock or pop, but these artists no longer sell well.

On the other side of the coin, digital purveyors have reported sales that are steadily increasing. CNET reports that Apple’s iTunes service has recently hit the 5 billion sales mark. Ten years ago, music executives were certain that nobody would use a service like iTunes and were adversaries of digital music. These were the same executives that told everyone that nobody would every consider buying digital music. I hope those executives no longer have jobs.

Thing is, the music industry is changing, and often in very bad ways. Niche music is often overrepresented because the assumption is that nobody listens to rock or rock radio anymore. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but unfortunately, rock and pop listeners aren’t buying records. Rock and pop listeners are downloading or burning from others, stacking the industry against them.

Remember the good old days of the mid-nineties, the days of the super-album? Albums like Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View, and Dave Matthews Band’s Crash could sell tens of millions of copies, have five radio singles from a single album, and still retain the interest of fans? Those were the days.

In the meantime, I say the music industry has wrought much of this misery on themselves. First, they fail to quickly act in order to embrace the inevitability of digital music. Even today, there are still record labels and artists who remain off of digital music formats for one reason or another. Radiohead only recently allowed services like iTunes to carry their back catalog. So when the music’s not there and the music appeals to a young, tech-savvy crowd, they steal rather than buy. Plus, young music fans know what the record companies are all about. They continue to sue the pants off of kids in college, and sometimes grandmas and children. According to the RIAA, the threat of a lawsuit makes you more enamored of the industry you devote so much time and energy to.

Perhaps the slow death rattle of the record companies is a good thing. With digital music, anyone can distribute their own tunes and promote themselves without a huge record company budget. Ultimately this may be the best thing that’s ever happened to quality music in this country.

Slate recently ran a story explaining why gas is so cheap in my home state of Missouri. Of course, gas really isn’t that cheap her, because we are paying just a little under $4 a gallon. While this may be cheap for other states, compare this to the $3 we were paying on a few months ago and you can see that “cheap” is a relative term.

This got me thinking: are we asking the right questions when it comes to the rising cost of gas in our nation? Let’s take a look at the issues.

Congressional Democrats recently tried but failed to enact legislation to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. The logic goes that oil companies are, themselves, driving up prices in order to increase their profit margins. After all, profits for Big Oil have indeed skyrocketed as of late. If we tax this windfall, the logic goes, we’ve found a solution to high gas prices.

Unfortunately, this legislation doesn’t offer a comprehensive solution to the problem because it makes the assumption that blame and therefore a solution can be found within the confines of Big Oil. Similar plans by presidential candidates Obama and McCain to suspend federal taxes on oil for a short time will likely do very little to ease the problem, and any gains made by families will probably just end up compensating for higher food costs and general cost of living increases. The problem–and I say this with a must heavy heart as a commuter–is not so simple.

Let’s take a look at the idea of peak oil that’s being bandied about by environmentalists and pundits. Peak Oil, for those that don’t know, describes a condition of oil supply. Every year, oil production increases. At Peak Oil, the theory goes, oil production has reached the highest level available for the Earth’s supply and will only decrease from that point on, lowering supply and significantly raising cost.

Thing is, we keep finding more oil. Yep, there’s still lots of oil out there and we keep finding it. Also, our technology for extracting oil from fields that used to be off limits has increased, so the availability of oil isn’t really the problem. Is Peak Oil a possibility, even in the near future? Yes. Do we have to worry about it now? No. There’s still plenty of time for us to move our energy systems away from oil and into cheaper electric energy and alternative fuel sources and do so without famine and violence.

So what’s really driving up the cost? As you probably remember from school, supply and demand rules might apply to high gas prices. The emerging economies of countries like China and India need more oil to run. Is increased world supply actually driving up cost?

The short answer? No. World supply hasn’t increased significantly enough to explain the sharp rise in gas prices. Sure, the demand for oil has steadily increased as of late. However, if you compare the increase in oil demand with the increase in gas prices, it’s like comparing apples to oranges. There’s no comparison. Gas prices have increased much more than oil demand.

So what’s the real explanation for increased gas prices? Well, at the risk of sounding too simplistic, the problem may rest with commodities traders.

A recent deregulation of commodities trading has removed key restrictions from oil trading, meaning that the market is no longer the prim, proper, and well-behaved market of yore. Today’s market is much like the kid from a strict family who goes off to college and parties his way into flunking out. The market’s unstable and, without those rules that once governed the market well, oil-drunk commodities traders are slowly and steadily driving up the cost of oil. It’s not the refineries or even necessarily Big Oil. Our gas prices are going up because of bad laws and an out-of-control marketplace.

It remains to be seen what the true reason for high gas prices is and I’m sure history will write the real story eventually. For now, though, it looks like the simplest explanation may not be the best.

The recent mainstream acceptance of the sport of mixed martial arts, known as MMA, recently had a big breakthrough. On Saturday, the first primetime MMA event aired on CBS. Elite XC Saturday Night Fights introduced the primetime broadcast television world to the controversial sport.

Parade magazine said the game should be banned. The world of “legitimate” sports has long criticized the sport for not actually being a sport and more controlled brutality. Fans, however, mostly young men, flock to MMA which makes a sport out of kicking, punching, and grappling with others. Yes, people bleed. Yes, there are lots of really painful-looking things going on. Yes, it’s violent. But let me try to explain to women why this sport should matter and why you should not freak out so much about the popularity of this “fighting sport.”

One of the bones of contention for the CBS event was the women’s fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young. You may know Carano as Crush, the “hot” gladiator on NBC’s series American Gladiators. Carano has been called the face of women’s mixed martial arts since women haven’t really been major players in MMA until Carano showed up. So far, she’s undefeated and trains with some very elite names in the MMA community. She’s being trained by Extreme Coture, the fighting school established by MMA hall of famer Randy Coture. Then again, maybe she’ll do American Gladiators full time and will quit the daily grind of fight training.

Thing is, fighting looks pretty violent. In the early days of UFC, one of the sport’s major fight organizers, fights were brutal and the stuff of paid subscription television. There were no rules, so any man could fight any other man, so they did. Men’s teeth were kicked out. Hair was pulled. Groins were kicked. Blood was spilled, sometimes in copious amounts. This wasn’t a sport but televised brutality. While the “train wreck” appeal was undeniable, it quickly became apparent to everyone that the sport had to change in order to gain respect.

So the sport pulled together and created some unified rules. In UFC events and Elite XC events, there is no eye gouging, groin kicking, or elbows to the head while fighters are on the ground. There’s no breaking of fingers. Ringside doctors have the power to stop any fight at any time. Referees are required to stop fights they feel might become dangerous.

MMA may look brutal. It is fighting, after all, but the danger is overemphasized by critics. MMA doesn’t kill. Dale Earnhardt fans know all too well the pain of sports death, and the danger of sports like NASCAR, the NFL, or even horse racing are understated in the media while the dangers of MMA are overstated. MMA requires that fights be stopped before anyone actually gets hurt.

The idea is that fighters get to the point when they could potentially hurt each other seriously, like locking someone’s arm or chocking someone while on the ground. When this happens, the fight ends before harm is actually done. Nobody’s breaking their arms because the fighter wins when he proves that they could but before he actually does. Boxing emphasizes standing up, even though tremendous damage is being done to the brain, and Muhammad Ali is reminder of the damage that can be done by boxing. MMA, however, is a sport where the fight is stopped before the damage is done. If you’re not fighting back, you lose. No exceptions.

Then, there’s the question of taste. How tasteful can it be to have muscle-bound men, with the occasional woman, punch, kick, and wrestle each other in the name of sport? How can a sport be tasteful if so many of its athletes bleed during competition? Therein lies the most legitimate criticism of MMA.

When I was a young girl, I used to watch my grandfather while he watched boxing on TV. Grandpa was quite possibly the world’s most mild-mannered man. He had a heavy accent and a dark, brooding look about him, softened over the years by gray hair and the rounding of old age. He also loved to watch boxing, a surprising sport for a man like him to enjoy.

As boxing events wore on throughout the afternoon, he would sit in the living room, watching as men would pound each other about the head and body. He’d ball up his fists and hold them under his neck, occasionally throwing light punches in the air and shouting in the language I didn’t know. Eventually the frustration would overwhelm him and he’d storm out of the room to go work in the garden. A few minutes later, though, he’d always return to find out what happened.

I feel like our tastes don’t always have to define us. Yes, most MMA fans are young men, the kind of men who buy energy drinks and malt liquor, perennial corporate sponsors of MMA events. I, however, am a fan. I don’t know why I’m a fan, but MMA seems like a harmless indulgence. If sweaty men want to punch and kick each other for money and they want me to watch, I’ll watch.

So there you have it, MMA in a nutshell. Ladies, feel free to hate MMA if you want. I, on the other hand, will be enjoying last week’s big UFC pay-per-view event, hoping for some nice armbar or rear naked choke action.