"Coolness" is in the mind

I heard this discussion on the radio yesterday on "Q".  There was a guy who writes for salon.com (never read it, never will) talking about "Normcor" which is apparently a trend among "hipsters" whereby they dress like "people who get their clothes at Walmart".  "The ultimate cool is to be purposefully 'uncool'." 

Oh, there was a great hew and cry about what "cool" is and how, in this case, the coolness is in the mind, because, of course, if you are successful in dressing like someone who shops at Walmart, you should look just like them and apparently, they are "uncool".  (I'd say perhaps they are, since the employees aren't paid a decent wage and the clothes come from sweat shops (but that's not just Walmart), but then again, it's rough to try to make ends meet, so people have to shop where they can -- for me, it's Value Village all the way!)  I don't know what to think about all of this.  Some of you have tried to describe to me what a hipster actually is, but I just get an image of someone with "hip hugger" jeans and a thick belt, and maybe long hair hanging in the person's eyes.  Or a bunch of people in a smoky basement club reciting poetry in expressionless voices.  Then to apply "Walmart" on top of that gives a really great image.

To me, it's cool to have a passion and be committed to it, but obviously it can't be an evil passion (like developing liquified natural gas -- the more I learn about fracking, the more vile it sounds).  To be willing to put yourself out there and take a risk.  To embrace life and not be afraid to try new things.  It doesn't have anything to do with clothing, but then I would never be cool if it did, and let's face it, I'm SUPERCOOL!

We went to Stanley Park yesterday.  I had free passes to the aquarium and so we went in.  I like a lot of things about the aquarium, but animals in captivity bother me a lot.  The little aquariums with all the colourful fish and jellies are beautiful and I appreciate that the aquarium does a lot of good work -- educating people about animals that they probably could never see otherwise and also helping injured and sick marine animals, but I find it upsetting to see the belugas in that small pool and the little penguins just standing there on some rocks looking like prisoners waiting for their yard time (which never actually comes) and the sea turtle swimming back and forth across the glass where in nature he would have the whole ocean.  Last year, we went to Monterey and they don't have whales and they are hugely successful.  I know they're having a debate about it now in Vancouver.  If I had the power, I would say that they should phase out the whales at least.  Of course, as a global community, we have to commit ourselves to making the wilderness safe for animals like whales and chimpanzees and lions and elephants and all these iconic animals.  That's a lot harder than keeping a few poor "examples" in aquariums and zoos.