No matter what network you watch your news is filtered in some way. I like foreign news sources because you will find stories and perspectives on BBC, Al Jazeera, or Agence France Presse that you simply won’t find on American news sources. After a while you become amazed at just how censored our news really is. Whether its self-censorship by play-it-safe media conglomerates or government imposed censorship really doesn’t matter all that much. In the end your view of yourself, your country, and the world will be shaped by skewed information. Taking the time to get your news from a variety of sources pays off.
Below is a video of an anti-war protest at the convention in Denver that received zero coverage by CNN, MSNBC, et al.
This paper will explore some aspects of the 1920 film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”. A film with this much rich complexity and symbolism is worthy of a book-length treatment which Is unfortunately beyond our scope. This paper will be limited to first briefly recounting the history of the film, the biographies of the two principal writers, the two main themes, and some of the symbolism supporting those themes. The film is, it may be argued, two films tacked together, so we will first look at the original middle of the script and after that the beginning and ending framing scenes.
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When “Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari” was first shown in Germany in 1920 it was beloved by the intellectuals, misinterpreted by the Philistines, and largely ignored by the masses although it “did good box office,” as Variety might say. It was in fact one of the earliest Art House films. The press was unanimous in praising “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” as “art on screen”. The war-weary people liked the more accessible “Nosferatu” (1922) more than they liked “Caligari”. And so the World turns.
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It is an old and wise axiom that One should always separate the art from the artist. Sometimes, however, the artist’s background so profoundly influences the art that not knowing the artist’s story is a handicap to appreciating the art. So, let us briefly attend to the stories of the two writer’s of “Caligari”. Hans Janowitz, one of the two authors of the film, grew up in the medieval city of Prague. One evening in October 1913 the young poet was strolling through a fair in Hamburg trying to find a girl he had seen earlier. He thought he heard her laugh in the bushes surrounding the fair which was in the Holstenwall, a notorious area of Hamburg. As he approached a man stepped out of the bushes, well dressed and bourgeois. The following day the headlines read “Horrible Sex Crime on the Holstenwall. Young Gertrude … Murdered!” Feeling that Gertrude may have been the same girl he attended her funeral. At the funeral was the same young bourgeois he saw in the bushes that night. This haunted Janowitz and he incorporated this into the film years later.
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Carl Meyer was born in the Austrian town of Graz where his father gambled everything away with his adherence to “scientific gambling”. Carl and his three younger brothers were turned out into the street where he supported them by being selling barometers. In these years he became fascinated by the stage and worked his way up through every aspect of theater while living his nomadic life. Meyer was soon drafted into the war and had a psychological breakdown. He conceived a hatred for the martinet of an Army psychiatrist who tormented him and thus for all authority figures. It is from Meyer that the most strongly anti-authoritarian aspects of the film come from.
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The two men met after the end of World War I, and became friends. Together they visualized the character of Caligari after sharing their stories and visiting a carnival together that featured a sideshow act of a hypnotized strongman performing great feats of strength. They took their completed script to a studio where they went about putting their vision onto celluloid. The studio appointed head of the project was Erich Pommer who in later years recounted how Mayer and Janowitz were “always talking art” at him. “They wanted to experiment and I wanted to keep costs down” (Solomon 52). The work in progress was considered too dangerously radical for those uncertain times.
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It was the great Fritz Lang who suggested that the bracketing framing sequences at the start and end of the film be added to tone down the film so as not to scare off the public. It is these two scenes suggested by Lang that add to the psychological and metaphysical meaning to the film. These enclosing frames of the story also point neatly to the postwar German psychological tendency to retreat into a shell. Thus a overtly revolutionary film was made more conformist politically and also more complex psychologically.
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Now to the anti-authoritarianism of “Caligari”.Caligari is a cripple, a sign of his emotional stuntedness. Caligari through the power of his presence can make Cesare (the people) turn on their own and murder (the War). The character of Caligari is transparently Kaiser Wilhelm II and Cesare Is the German people and the German Army mesmerized to utter obedience by the powerful Leader. Caligari says at one point that Cesare has been “asleep for 23 years”. he sleeps in a coffin, apparantly dead inside and presumably soon to be dead in the war. It struck me that there must be something to such a specific length of time that I pursued a hunch that that it had something to do with the Kaiser’s reign. Actually, Kaiser Wilhelm reigned for far longer, but from 1895 to 1918 he instituted “Personal Rule” which amounted to direct autocratic rule for exactly 23 years. A contemporary audience would have been aware of this. Dr. Caligari walks with a cane he wields like a scepter. He influences all with his hypnotic eyes and bearing.
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Let me mention two supporting characters and my interpretation of them. The character of Alan represents the intellectual in his hovel of a room, surrounded by books and a disintegrating environment. Even his reading chair has a ladder back which points to his intellectual aspiration to climb the ladder of knowledge. Alan tries to foil Caligari but is ineffectual. The town official also sits in a high-backed chair–symbol of his high status–like the three flights of stairs up to Caligari’s office, a sign of his lofty position. If you look at the Town Clerk’s desk it is covered with mysterious signs and talismans which I take to refer to the “mystery” of bureaucracy and the “magical” inner workings of government as seen by the common people.
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There are Dionysian elements to the film. The Fair is reminiscent of Babylon a hoary comparison. A poet–Bill McKechnie–wrote of “that Babylon of booths–the Fair” (Kracauer 52). The merry-go-roundsare wonderful pictures of the whirling swirl of the Dionysian whirlpool of chaos at play. The Fair is much like the chaotic conditions of postwar Germany. The Expressionist set design, with nary astraight Apollonian line is sight, is also Dionysian to its core.
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The tacked on framing scenes are very different–almost a different film. The first scene in the film opens with two men on a bench and as they talk we get hints that one of them, Francis, is not quite right. The strange leaf and line pattern on the wall behind him is a clue. A woman in white walksby and Francis lets us know that “That is my fiance.” If so, why did shy walk by him without recognition? This indicates something is amiss. The young woman dressed in white is humanity’s (and Germany’s) innocence lost.
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The ending scene in the film brings to mind the old Eastern parable in which a man wonders if he Is still dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is a man. Gut instinct alone tells us that we are in Freud Country, continent of Jung. I suspect, though cannot prove with citable sources, that the reversal of insane roles was subversively shaded to mean that both Caligari and the patient are insane together. A clue to this is the fact that even after the revealing end in which the real doctor claims that he will “cure Caligari” the background is still warped, twisted, dreamlike; the chimneys are still askew.
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“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” is a richly complex film and no paper of this limited length can do It justice. The lives of the two scriptwriters profoundly influenced the film, especially in its anti-authoritarian theme. The meddling of the conservative studio added a beneficial layer of psychological complexity is my hope that I have illuminated in a small way this timeless and wonderful film.
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Bibliography
Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, Princeton University Press, 1947
Solomon, Stanley J., Essays in Criticism, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973
I wrote this essay for a class, but I think it makes a decent blog post.
Consumerism and Plato’s Cave
You are a slave. Blame no one; you have put your chains on yourself. Consumerism has snared us all in its web of deceit and control. Some people have broken their bonds, others are still bound. If you think your worth as a person is defined by what you own and what you buy then you are still in bondage “inside a prison you cannot taste or see or touch…a prison for your mind”(Matrix). This paper will examine the psychosocial phenomenon known as consumerism. First the word “consumerism” will be defined and then a few examples of it will be offered. Then we will look at some of the mechanisms that are used to make it work in practice both in people’s minds and in society as a whole. Then a case will be made for its elimination and practical steps that can be taken to bring this elimination about in your own life.
What is consumerism? The dictionary defines it as “the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of goods(Oxford). A business website also defines it as a “continual expansion of one’s wants and needs for goods and services”(businessdictionary). In other words, no matter how much you have it’s not enough and you always want more–and that is supposed to be a good thing. I find it of note that the first recorded use of the word was in 1944, almost exactly contemporaneous with America’s victories in World War II and its conscious decision to actively seek to be the world’s dominant power(Merriam-Webster). Perhaps this is coincidence, but given the known history of the Truman Administration’s conscious decision to “scare the bejesus out of the American people” for political–and military-industrial–ends I lean toward a view of non-coincidence in such things (Truman).
“It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed.” (Veblen).
If you buy a gas-guzzling SUV that you can’t really afford because it enhances your status you are a victim of consumerism. If you max out your credit cards buying things you don’t really need to have, you’re a victim of consumerism. If you constantly buy the “the latest new thing” because it’s the latest new thing, you are a victim of consumerism. I could go on and on, but the reader knows what I’m talking about. The reader grew up in this culture and has lived and breathed the consumer air for a lifetime. Even if eschewed and scorned by the reader, he or she knows exactly the kind of behavior I mean. I won’t belabor it.
Why does consumerism exist? What is its usefulness and to whom is it useful? The political usefulness of a consumerist mindset is obvious. Keep the people distracted and preoccupied with an endless circle of increasing wants and “needs”–and in acquiring the means to meet those wants and needs– and the people will have little time to meddle in important affairs of state. One need only look at the (until recently) appallingly low levels of voter participation in this country to support this. Widespread consumerism also has the benefit to the invested class of being quite profitable to them. In ancient Rome the ruling classes used “bread and circuses” to amuse the mob and keep them mollified and docile, increasing their own power and wealth. Today we have the Olive Garden and television on the banks of the Columbia River to replace the bread and circuses on the Tiber.
Buddha said that life is illusion. This may be so, though I contend that not all illusions are created equal nor are all illusions equally harmful. Not all illusions are wholly external to us; some illusions are of our own making or exist only with our complicity. Although Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is on one level just an argument for a fascist form of government, another message we could take from Plato’s story is that willful avoidance of Truth is a part of human nature. This chasing of shadows is both limiting and stupefying. People will choose the complacent stupefaction of staring at illusory shadows over the pain and effort of emerging into the bright light of Truth.
“Welcome to the desert of the real.” (Matrix)
The corrosive effects on our society as a whole are everywhere apparent. When America faced its worst attack since Pearl Harbor in 2001 did the President call for noble sacrifice of “blood, sweat, toil, and tears?”(Churchill). No, the Leader of the Free World told us to “keep shopping”(Bush). This is not the greatest generation.
Consumerism cheapens the very idea of true self sacrifice or selfless agape love. Its all about “me” and my illusions. Such is the level of our degeneracy as a society. The moral corrosion acting on us as individuals is also evident. Consumerism does its best to divorce us from reality. This is its point. “To have a fraud, you have to have a large distance between the touted grand appearance and the commonplace actuality, a distance perhaps perceivable by the disillusioned customer after buying the item but never before.” (Fussell). The advertising industry is the great engine that keeps the consumer machine running and television its main vehicle for delivery of its message. Edward R. Murrow warned against the promising medium of television being used to promote “decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live” (Murrow). Otherwise, he warned, television would be little more than “lights and wires in a box”. The lights in that box are to me reminiscent of the shadows in Plato’s cave. Illusions both.
“What would Jesus buy?”(VanAlkemade)
What can be done to escape the trap of consumerism? First, adopt the principle of refusing to have anything “canned” for you. This means avoiding, as far as possible, prepackaged entertainment and goods. Accept that you are discerning enough to make your own fun without having to have some corporate entity package it for you. Avoid buying any new goods when you can search out something old instead. One of my favorite things to do is make the rounds of garage sales, thrift stores, and good flea markets in search of “treasures.” This is both fun and a poke in the eye to consumer culture. My house is largely furnished with such found treasures. Next to the desk I am sitting at now are: a fountain pen from the ’40s, a 1920’s Victrola on top of which is the 1955 Zenith radio NPR is playing on. None of these things cost very much but they are different and will last far longer than something from IKEA. They also have considerably more character. Instead of collecting Beanie Babies (or whatever the latest faddish thing is) I have behind me my collection of old cameras dating from 1933 (a Brownie Six-Sixteen) to as late as 1958. Some of them had undeveloped film still in them, an entre into the unusual hobby of collecting, developing, and sharing “found film” sometimes decades old (flickr). Used books cost little and there is no pressure to get the latest New Thing. I have something like 1000 hardcover books on my shelves almost always bought cheap but cherished nonetheless–and read just as voraciously. After moving to Portland I discovered the wonderful Multnomah County Library and that has cut down on my new book purchases considerably.
My point is that avoiding the new and embracing the old can be colorful and interesting as well as anti-consumerist. Consumerism is a scam perpetrated upon us by those who rule us to keep up complacent, docile, and profitable. It corrupts and atrophies the soul. You can choose to opt out of this corrupt system if you decide to pursue your liberation with perceptivity, imagination, and fortitude. In the end you will stop staring at shadows, lose your chains, walk out into the light, and start your new life.
Bibliography
Fussell, Paul Bad: Or,The Dumbing of America, Summit Books, New York 1991, 17
“Matrix, The” Warner Brothers Studio, 1999
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Third Edition, 1971
Murrow, Edward R. “RTNDA Convention Speech” Chicago 1958
Oxford Concise English Dictionary, Tenth Edition, Oxford University Press, New York 1999
Truman, Harry S., Thirty-third President of the United States of America (1945-49)
VanAlkemade, Robert (director/producer) “What Would Jesus Buy?” Independent Film 2007
Veblen, Thorsten The Theory of the Leisure Class, Dover Publications, Minneola 1994, 102
An “earworm” is a song that gets stuck in your head. It doesn’t matter if you like the song or not; you are at its mercy. From the German word Ohrwurm. Here are a few earworm songs I’ve suffered through:
1)”One (is the Loneliest Number)” by Three Dog Night
2)”Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones
3) “Faith” by George Michael
4) “Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode
5)Theme from “The Wind and the Lion” by Jerry Goldsmith
Here is a short essay I wrote for a class comparing and contrasting Niccolo Machiavelli and Kautilya.
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This essay will compare and contrast aspects of the philosophies of Kautilya (317-293B.C.) and Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527 A.D.). My contention is that both authors were heavily influenced by their epochs and societies and that these influences bleed through thetexts and philosophical observations the men put forth in the works under discussion. First, an attempt will be made to briefly place them in the context of their respective cultures, and how those cultures affected their views. Then, four specific topics that each man expounded on will be used as illustration of their similar and divergent points of view. The four examined topics will be as follows: the ruler’s virtue, the ultimate goal of the state, the just state versus the unjust state, and the use of the army in war. For the purpose of brevity in the limited space available, basic biographical background information will be kept to a minimum since it can be reasonably assumed that the reader is already informed. The reader’s indulgence is asked for in the use of the male pronoun exclusively throughout this paper for the sake of convenience and historical accuracy.
“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” (Kipling)
First, let us examine the underlying cultural divide between Kautilya and Machiavelli. Richard Nisbett in The Geography of Thought discusses the atomistic oriented West and how it differs in outlook from the East, where ideas of interconnectedness and interdependence pervade the culture. In a telling experiment conducted with students from both the University of Michigan and Kyoto University, groups of students would be shown a picture of a large fish.
The participating Japanese students would describe the background, scenery, and relationship of the large fish to the other fish in the picture. The Western students would focus on the large fish in isolation. This was interpreted as demonstrating the individualistic mindset of the Westerner versus the interdependent mindfulness of the person of the East. Nisbett characterized this difference as looking through a wide-angle lens versus tunnel-vision (Nisbett). I contend that Nisbett’s wide-angle/tunnel-vision dichotomy underlies the differences in view and ethos between Machiavelli and Kautilya. Machiavelli’s tunnel-vison sees only the big fish (the Prince) in isolation and his individual goal of staying in power as the light at the end of the tunnel. Kautilya tends to put the big fish in context of the pond (the kingdom) andhow they affect one another. Kautilya looks at the whole “ecosystem,” so to speak. This is perhaps the major difference between them.
“Tis too much proved, that with devotion’s visage and pious action, we do sugar o’er The devil himself.” (Shakespeare)
Now let us move on to some specific points, starting with each writer’s view of the virtuousness of the prince and how this virtue, or lack of it, can affect his rule. First, Kautilya emphasizes that careful moral training and self-cultivation of the virtues make for a good ruler. By conquering “lust, anger, greed, vanity, haughtiness, and exuberance he (the ruler) shall acquire balanced wisdom.” (Kautilya 6:1) In so many words Kautilya is saying that a good man makes a good ruler and that makes for a good kingdom. This may be the case, since the Age of Ashoka (273-232 B.C) that followed the rule of Kautilya’s King Chandragupta Maurya was an enlightened Golden Age for India. M.V. Krishna Rao wrote that “As a result of the progressive secularization of society due to the innovations contemplated by [the Arthasastra] and the administration of Chandragupta, the country was prepared for the reception of the great moral transformation ushered in by Ashoka and his administration” (Rao 232). One may say that an enlightened Machiavellianism may bring about good results for everyone. Machiavelli, on the other hand, says that in order to rule well “a Prince must first learn how not to be good.” Nowhere does Machiavelli speak of the greater welfare of the people as an end, only of keeping power for the one at the top. A golden age manque.
“I don’t pretend to be a man of the people, but I do try to be a man for the people.” (Jacobi)
Let’s now look at a second point of comparison: the goal of the state. Kautilya envisioned a kind of “socialized monarchy” that would have been tantamount to an “elaborate welfare state” (Wolpert 60). He was of the opinion that the the larger goal of the ruler is the good of his people. Here is eastern interconnectedness at work, for what the ruler is and does effects everyone and this will eventually come full circle to affect the ruler in a kind of socio-political feedback loop. Machiavelli, however, on the very face of it saw keeping the prince in power as the only real goal of the state and evaluated “liberality” as tantamount to weakness (Machiavelli XVI:4). Niccolo had nothing to say of the happiness of the people except that their discontent might destabilize the ruler.
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” (Durant)
Third, let’s look at the two bureaucrat’s respective take on a just state. Here the two gentlemen, for once, largely converge to agree on the issue of justice and property rights. Kautilya and Machiavelli both said that a ruler may remove an opponent If he must but should leave his property unmolested. Machiavelli said “above all he (the Prince) must abstain from taking the property of others, for men more easily forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.” (Machiavelli XVII:10) Compare this to Kautilya’s similar admonition to “avoid hurting the women or property of others” (Kautilya 374). Property and wealth, It seems, earn deference in any time and place. Kautilya also saw an unjust state as vulnerable, for the unjust king’s subjects, “weary of injustice, will not help the [unjust] king and might even join the war against him.” (Kautilya 335)
“Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive.” (Greene)
Our fourth and last point of comparison is Kautilya’s opinion on the role of the army in war versus Machiavelli’s view. Let’s switch order and take Machiavelli first. Niccolo thought that letting an army pillage and sack a conquered enemy city was an excellent way for a prince to pay and please his troops. Machiavelli, I think, never heard a Sixteenth Century equivalent term to our “blowback.” Kautilya, however, strongly advised the decider-in-chief to prevent his victorious troops from ransacking the property of conquered commoners (Kautilya 374). Kill the defeated enemy leaders if necessary, but leave the homes and wealth of the defeated people alone. By this policy the conquering ruler wins over the loyalties of the conquered population to the point where it may even take up arms on his behalf.
In conclusion, while both Machiavelli’s The Prince and Kautilya’s Arthasastra are seminal works of lasting merit and each a memorable product of their respective times and cultures it is Kautilya, in my opinion, who produced the deeper and more insightful work. This greater depth, breadth, and particular ethos, sprang from the ancient culture from which Kautilya came. Max Weber recognized this when he said that “truly radical Machiavellianism is classically expressed in Indian literature in the Arthasastra of Kautilya: compared to it, Machiavelli’s The Prince is harmless” (Weber 220).
Bibliography
Greene, Graham, The Heart of the Matter, Heinemann, 1948. (Pt.1, Ch 2)
Jacobi, Derek, “Gladiator”, Dreamworks SKG, dir. Ridley Scott, 2000
The US federal appeals court has overturned a lower court decision involving free software. The Court of Appeals has said that Artistic Licenses commonly attached to open source software are enforceable under copyright law. This means that persons who violate the conditions of use can be held accountable. This is considered a huge decision that paves the way for greater use of open source software.
One of the most painful and disappointing things I’ve seen recently is the fall of John Edwards and how he then tried to rationalize and justify what he did. Granted, its human nature to grasp at straws, and I’m hardly in the position to cast stones at anyone for anything, but come on. He made a point to say he cheated on his wife only after she was in remission. How noble. He said no one should think his family is responsible for his actions–umm, yeah we know that. I liked many of his positions on the issues, especially his pro-labor stance and advocacy of comprehensive health coverage. In the end, though, I’m so very grateful he is not the nominee or the Republican would win for sure and I’d have to move to Canada after all.
One fun and cheap thing to do in Portland is make the rounds of Garage Sales in search of “treasures”. Today’s find is a reel-to-reel tape recorder made in 1963 and that cost $15.88 at Sears Roebuck & Co. What really made my day is what I found on it: a recording of a little girl and her younger friends (sisters?) singing and talking on what sounds like a Christmas tape made in the mid-1960’s. That little girl must be around 50 years old now. Maybe you can identify the 60’s(?) pop song playing at the end. Here is the tape for your listening pleasure(approx 5 minutes, Note: at about 4 minutes into the tape it cuts out for 15 seconds, probably it was accidentally recorded over):
1) Silvertone All Transistor Tape Recorder Model 4244 Owner’s Manual
2) Sales receipt 16383 for $15.88 made out to a Mrs Joseph J——–, Portland Oregon
3) Factory inspection tag stamp dated June 25 1963
4) Two blank Sears Roebuck order blanks from 1963
5) An envelope for the order blanks addressed to: Sears Roebuck & Co, Seattle 4, Washington (pre ZIP codes).
6) A postcard offering Allstate insurance and touting their “313 Drive-In Claim Centers” (First Class, Permit No 3). No claim that you are “in good hands with Allstate”…this predates that slogan
7) An entry blank cut out from Children’s Playmate Magazine for their Galleon’s Gold Contest in which you can enter and win fabulous prizes. Drawing to be held April 15, 1964. It was never filled out and never sent. The back of the cut out form has part of a story titled “The Treasure Princess.”
Richard Lidzbarski @ August 10, 2008
Answered Prayers in 140 Characters or Less
I’ve found God, or rather God has found me. He speaks to me. Keep reading, its NOT what you think.
I’ve been active on the new(ish) social networking service Twitter. What’s different about Twitter is how it lends itself to meeting people in Real Life(tm) and keeping in continuing contact with them through frequent microblog “tweets” [...]
–Scientific proof that if you yawn you may make your dog yawn too.
–California’s COBOL using computers are so antiquated that it will take months to put in place a statewide paycut for state employees. Revenge of the Nerds?
Long ago I read every Sherlock Holmes story penned by Arthur Conan Doyle. I would curl up with a book of stories and imagine myself in Victorian London solving mysteries and foiling the plans of my arch nemesis Mrs Taylor, er… I mean Professor Moriarty. Mrs Taylor was my 6th grade teacher and looking back [...]
Yeah, I went through a Country phase once, but I came to my senses. Now Dale Watson is one of the very few “Country” singers I still listen to. Called “Alternative Country” and “Hip Honky Tonk” Dale Watson is an original and the last great living “Truck Stop Daddy”. I first saw him in concert [...]
– What ever happened to the Art of Breaking Up? People are using services like Slydial and Twitter to break up with their BF/GF.
–It smells like French Fries. A man uses vegetable oil as brake fluid.
Its raining here in Portland. Surprise! In honor of the gray melancholy that I can sometimes love I here present a clip of my favorite depressing song ever, The Cure’s “Pictures of You”.
P.S–Dear Robert Smith, “Disintigration” is your best album EVER! Boohaha!
An Egyptian Pharoah, a Roman Emperor, and a Sumerian King walk into a bar… [...]
I’ve been a Linux user since late 1993 when I first downloaded Slackware floppy installation disks in an all night dial-up session using the then screamingly fast 14.4 modem. The Slackware distribution was new then and all the talk. I stayed with Slack for a couple years, learning much of the inner workings of Linux [...]
–You think you can’t be sent to the insane asylum because you’re not insane? Think again.
–Down with airlines! Passengers fed up with delays and airport hell riot and smash up the terminal. Viva la Revolucion!
–Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29 1958. Happy Birthday NASA.
Another unsolicited email that’s actually pretty funny.
1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight
testicles. (Kelly, age 6)
2) - Oysters’ balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)
3) - If you are surrounded by ocean you are an island. If
you don’t have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. ( [...]
This column was printed in today’s Washington Post.
Here was my curmudgeonly response:
Robert McDowell was for years a lobbyist for the telecom industry and it
shows. His column reads as a puff piece for Comcast and Friends. I really
wish the Post would stop wasting space and my time with such K Street pap.
Perhaps we could hear from [...]
–A Remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is in the works by ….MTV?? Noooooooo!
–Due to the unusually long presidential campaign and the numerous threats against Barack Obama the Secret Service is almost out of money for the fiscal year and needs more $ to continue protection services.
–You can be a bridesmaid if you get Botox n Boob Job. Four for the price of two!
–NEWS FLASH! Paris is an artistic backwater living off its past glory.
–A professor educating the elite at an elite university discusses the disadvantages of an elite education
–A funny story by a Havard prof and his misadventures in teaching [...]
Whether you plan to vote for the guy or not you have to admit that god’s have been favoring him this week with a flawlessly executed junket, er..fact-finding mission. 200,000-plus adoring Germans eating up every word. Won’t it be nice to be the popular kids in school again?
Here is a review of the event from [...]
Below is a word that doesn’t translate into English but we all know it anyway. Quoted below is this Wikipedia entry.
Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei)
is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”, and is considered one of the hardest words [...]
I posted this comment on Eugene Robinson’s discussion group on washingtonpost.com. Send me no flames please; it’s satirical, OK?
McCain is right, we have to defend against the terrorists pouring over the Iraq/Pakistan border. They are attempting to stir trouble in the heretofore friendly and loving Sunni/Shia relationship. The fact that the surge is working [...]
–In three years there may be a light on the end of your toothbrush that kills plaque.
–Speak American? How not to do an American accent.
–List of Starbucks to close.
–Forget special effects and production values. Read about the deeper meaning behind the movie Dark Knight.
The Environmental protection Agency has lowered what it considers to be the cash value of a human life for purposes of determining whether an environmental regulation is worth implementing. The EPA uses a complex formula that calculates the cost to business of a regulation versus the cash value of the lives saved or [...]
–An agency of the federal government has officially lowered the value of a human life.
Read about how you’ve been marked down.
–NASA has released a video of the Earth and Moon taken from a probe 31 million miles away.
–The Wall Street Journal is redrawing illustrations –making smiley faces now frowney– to reflect the bad economy.
–Singer Jo [...]
For years I’ve shaken my head at the large gas guzzling overkill SUV. Now vindication is mine! With gasoline in the vicinity of four dollars per precious gallon the thirsty Detroit dinosaurs are quickly becoming so out of favor that you can’t give them away.
Sport Utility Vehicles are typically driven by suburbanites, who use them [...]
Umberto Eco, author of such personal favorites as The Name of the Rose gave an interview in Paris Review where he reveals his love of Starsky and Hutch and illustrates how poetry can be like masturbation.
Users of American Sign language will give you a shorthand name to save having to sign out your name in [...]
News Nose
Click and Clack of NPR fix your car and fix your relationship fame are coming out with a new animated series on PBS. Its Car Talk meets Schoolhouse Rock: Junction rod, junction rod whats your function?
Toon du Jour
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Quotable
“I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because [...]
–You can stop wondering why apples don’t rot as quickly as pears, scientists discover the reason.
–Vertical farming? A NY Times article on growing food in skyscrapers.
–”Amblin”, the 1968 first movie by Steven Spielberg, is available on YouTube
I hear tell of Portland women going to a popular outdoor workout tonight in Alberta park in NE PDX, called Portland Boot Camp. Sounds like fun! I wish I had the fitness “credentials” to go. It brings back fond memories of the boot camp I went to, and boy did they ever work me! No [...]
The worlds oldest blogger died today at age 108. A retired Australian journalist, her site
All About Olive kept her mind active and featured posts such as “Washing Day, 1908″
Get ready for the ironical(?) New Yorker Magazine cover illustration coming out next week featuring Barack in turban and Michelle in fatigues terrorist fist bumping in [...]
Linux Plumber's Conference winding down. Concluding talk under way. Heading home soon. #lpc http://twitter.com/eikonoklastic2008/09/19
Loved handling the e-paper under development you can dl text even a webpage and then freeze it and carry it around, even bend round. #lpc http://twitter.com/eikonoklastic2008/09/19
In the mini-conf at the Linux Plumbers Conference on achieving a 5 second boot in Linux. #lpc http://twitter.com/eikonoklastic2008/09/18