Maybe I can try this when my elbow's better...

Seven More Words You Can't Say?

Balls.
Gun.
Smoked.
Colt .45.
Whore.
Drugs.
Green.

Apparently George Carlin's famous list is in need of some additions. At least, that's the only conclusion I can come to after hearing the great track "What It's Like" (NSFW, evidently…) by Everlast on the radio recently.* In an absurdly Kimmel-esque barrage of hyper-censorship, we're left hearing lines like this:

"…Late one night there was a big […] fight and Max lost his head
Pulled out his […] talked some […] and wound up dead…"

Now, granted, the third of these ellipses is a fairly universally-recognized profanity prohibited on TV/radio. My problem with this is that such extreme redaction serves to elevate perfectly innocuous words (in this case "gun" and "Colt .45") to the same profane status as Carlin's dirty seven. While I suppose I can understand the desire to avoid glorifying the use of firearms in pop culture, whoever came up with this particular censorship regimen clearly wasn't listening to the broader context, because the whole point of this verse is a lament about the violence inherent in the drug-selling environment. In another (even more absurd) excerpt, we hear:

"…I licked the silver spoon, drank from the golden cup, […] the finest […]…"

Really? "Smoked the finest green" has the same profane status as "fucking" and "shit" also bleeped from the song? What a crock! The phrase is already a pretty tame euphemism for "consuming cannabis," itself a fairly inoffensive locution, IMHO.

Why does this matter? I suppose it doesn't, in the grand scheme of things. Still, it bothers me every time I hear it, especially given the particularly myopic censorship of this song, the message of which is related to not passing judgment on others. Practically, I'm also currently struggling with instilling a proper respect for the power of language in my pre-schooler, as his vocabulary expands exponentially. Sure, I don't want him dropping the F-bomb for at least another couple of years, but I fear that our limiting his use of terms like "stupid" and "hit you" will "profanitise" these terms in his young mind. Unlike Everlast's censors, I hope I can find a better line in the sand to teach him the appropriate respect for the power of the spoken word.

*Okay, actually this has bothered me for years, and I'm only now getting around to venting about it.

:-D

[From From The Desk Of The Office Manager: Cuckold Card]

People:



I'm sorry to report that this past weekend, Tyson Brown in HR was CUCKOLDED. A "condolences" greeting card is being sent around the office. Write something nice for the cuckold, OK?

The card is being passed around with a list of office employees. Once your write in the card, scratch your name off the list and give it to the next person. We need to make sure EVERYBODY IN THE OFFICE ACKNOWLEDGES TYSON'S NEWLY-BESTOWED HORNS, so don't mess up the system. It is rules like these that distance us from the beasts, folks. If you have never written in an office-wide cuckold condolence card, here is a list of TIPS and TRICKS:

• Make scant mention of the act itself. If you have to describe the way in which another man turned Tyson's own marriage bed into a fetid den of iniquity, go light on the details.



• If you choose to draft an allegorical illustration of a cuckoo bird dashing another bird's eggs on the rocks and depositing its own in their stead, don't use up too much space on the card. 34 other people need to acknowledge Tyson's wife's treachery, so be respectful and keep your drawing compact.



• REMINDER: TYSON'S WIFE'S NAME IS: JESSICA, AND SHE IS: LOVELY BEYOND MEASURE. Here are some ways to describe her if you're too lazy to think of your own (ahem, you're welcome). "Fair Jessica"; "She by whom Helen of Troy is but plain"; "That nonpareil of grace"; "Fey nymph Jessica". Please REPLY-ALL to this message if you use any of these so that nobody doubles-up.



• While composing your message, remember to navigate between the Scylla of prolixity and the Charybdis of terseness. Examples of the latter: "Sorry!"; "Bummer re: cuckoldry, bro"; "U can rebound on me LOL." I've seen these messages and their ilk a hundred times in office cuckoldry cards. IF I SEE ANY TRITE GARBAGE LIKE THIS I WILL WHITE IT OUT I KID YOU NOT.



• We are asking people to chip in for a pair of BULL'S HORNS to mount on Tyson's cubicle. Everybody needs to do their part to ensure that Tyson's shame is manifested physically, so don't skimp.

Finally, if you are the one who ravaged sweet Jessica, taunt not the cuckold.



- Bye -



Katherine Tull-Potts, BA

Office Manager

This sandwich is hurty

Guess my flight home from Amsterdam could've been worse...

Four turkey sandwiches found on separate Delta Air Lines flights from Amsterdam to the United States contained what appeared to be sewing needles, the airline said Monday.

[From Needles found in airline sandwiches]

"Test" post; Book of Revelation

This is really more of a test post than anything, but I did find this review by Adam Gopnik of Elaine Pagels' book Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation for the New Yorker interesting. (via Kottke.org)

Abd el-Kader

Well, I've decided to try some blogging again…we'll see how long it sticks this time.  First "new" post is this excellent profile of Abd el-Kader (Via kottke.org) I finally got around to reading and I heartily recommend it.  Enjoy!

So, not much to say for a while now...

...not that anything's changed, really. Still not much to say, since I don't really know where to begin. I was really pulling for the Libyan Uprising, but it looks like the sun is setting on that, which is a great tragedy. Of course, the horrible events in Japan are just numbing in their terrible immensity as well. In light of these recent events (and many others less recent but no less important) I guess I just haven't felt I've had much to contribute to the conversation in a while. If I think of something, though, you'll be the first to know!

5 Largest Auto Recalls

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1. Ford (fire hazard, 2008, 14.1M)

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2. Ford (ignition, 1996, 7.9M)

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3. GM (engine mounts, 1971, 6.7M)

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4. GM (suspension, 1981, 5.8M)

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5. Toyota (accelerator, 2009, 5.3M)

(x = 500k vehicles; source)

This isn't to discount the seriousness of Toyota's recall, or to excuse their sloth/evasiveness. Still, I wish the media (and now the US Government) would do a better job contextualizing this recall (especially since the Government now has a stake in GM).

UPDATED: I moved Toyota up to spot #5 after their latest expanded recall...stop the bleeding! =/

Glimmers of Life

It's been a while, but lately I've been tinkering with some side blogs, dmetaltheory and dmusictheory. Hopefully I'll be better about adding to them in a more timely manner. Also, follow me on Twitter!

Another Good Quote

Pseudoscience makes me crazy, whether it's so-called creation scientists using the fossil record to argue against evolution, or the anti-vaccine luddites who think that pyramids and skin peels can remove dangerous "toxins" that cause disease. Hence, I kind of enjoy this quote, from Tom Scocca writing at theawl.com:

"I am all in favor of forcible vaccination; anti-vaccine activists are degenerate idiots who deserve to get polio and live out their days in iron lungs while Child Protective Services takes away their children to be properly raised. Or tetanus. Get lockjaw and shut up and die. What's the point of living in 21st-century America if not to avoid dying of stupid, easily preventable disease?"

Big Nose George

(from Wikipedia)

"...a cattle rustler in the Wild West in the late 19th century, he is known for being made into a pair of shoes after his death."

W...T...F...?!?

What is Vocation?

I love this quote, from Po Bronson's "What Should I Do with My Life, Now?":

"There's an old parable about the three bricklayers. They're laying bricks all morning, and when they finally get a break, one guy asks the other two, "Why are you doing this job?" The first guy says, "I'm doing it for the wages." The second guy says, "I'm doing it for my wife and kids." The third guy looks up at what they've been constructing all morning, which is a church -- a place to get in touch with one's highest self -- and says, "I'm helping to build a cathedral." Now, most people hear this parable, and they think the third guy has the right answer, and the first two guys have the wrong answer. That's the simplistic lesson that most people jump to, led their by their mythic notions of calling. But that is not the lesson of the parable. In fact, all three men have a sense of purpose -- have a "cathedral," if you will. The first guy has the Cathedral of Spirituality. Good for him. But the second guy has his too. The Cathedral of Family. And the third guy has the Cathedral of Self-sufficiency. Those are all good purposes. Those are all right answers. The real lesson of the parable is, notice what no man answered. Not one of the three said, "I just love laying bricks." Doing something for the sheer love of it is not what real people mean when they say their work provides a sense of purpose. That is not how they construct a sense of meaning and rightness. Looking for it, in that form, is incredibly illusory."

See Also...

So, again, I haven't posted in a while, but this time I have a good excuse: dmusictheory.  This is a fun side project I've been working on for about a year, although the site itself is still very new.  Check it out, and let me know what you think!

“In the age of Photoshop, anybody can do this kind of crap.”

That's Peter Frank, associate editor of The Magazine Los Angeles and senior curator at the Riverside Art Museum, referring to the work of "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade in a recent Vanity Fair article. I love this quote.

Sorry for the Hiatus...

...I blame the neo-parental stupor (I'm getting a lot of mileage out of that excuse lately...).

So, a lot has happened since my last post, but I think kottke.org said it best. I'm proud that good old North Carlina did its part to contribute to the blue-ing of America. I'm a little bummed that moron Virginia Foxx was re-elected to the house, though.

<soapbox rant_value= "rightIndign" content= "economic">

DISCLAIMER: I have virtually no aptitude for economics, so please take this rather unsophisticated rant with a grain of salt.

I've mentioned before that I tend towards the laissez-faire when it comes to economic issues, and so I've felt pretty ambivalent about the whole Wall-Street Rescue-Package(TM) drama. I do think there's a (limited) role for government regulation of the economy, but I think it's far too late for that now, and I also wonder how much good it would have done in the first place. From what I can tell, this whole mess boils down to overzealous financiers making bad loans to people who couldn't afford them, and this seems to violate the principles of week 1 of Banking 101: don't loan money to people who will never be able to afford to pay you back. Granted, this is an obscene oversimplification of a very complex series of events, but it all seems based on lenders making poorly-advised loans to lendees who could ill afford them (see that? Both sides are to blame...). I don't see why the government should get involved here, because a) lenders, loss is the price of profit sometimes, and b) borrowers, caveat emptor. True, this thing is now so big that it looks like it will thump the whole economy, but part of me thinks well, thems the breaks; welcome to capitalism folks. We ought to be prepared to take the bitter with the sweet.
</soapbox>

Arachnophilia

From dmtheory

I think spiders are cool. My dad captured this beauty on film in my garden a couple of months ago, and even spider-haters have to admit that it's fascinating to look at. Spiders are unbelievable engineers with their web-making, and most species' status near the top of their food chains means that they take care of far more annoying and dangerous pests (e.g., mosquitoes). Finally, the chances of getting seriously injured by a spider are woefully overrated. If you see one, don't kill it; just take it outside!

Fire in the Garden

As you might know, I enjoy gardening. I added a new crop this year: the fiery and delicious habanero chili. These bad boys are HOT (>100,000 Scoville Units), but they also have a nice citrusy tang to their heat, making them a great supplement to Mexican food. The best way to preserve them is in sauce form, and so far I've made 60 oz. of sauce from my 3 plants. Yum!

Department of Random...

This is out of the blue, but I wanted to share the fascinating Schmidt Sting Pain Index with you. The work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist, this index characterizes the painfulness of the stings of various bees, wasps & ants. My favorite is:

Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

"...and justice for all."

So what's the big deal about habeas corpus? And who cares whether the Guantánamo detainees have this right or not?

The ability to file a writ of habeas corpus is the right of a detained individual to challenge the rationale for his or her detention...essentially, it's the right to demand that the case surrounding the detention be brought to trial. The Bush Administration has argued that this right does not extend to Gitmo detainees...partially because they're not U.S. citizens but rather illegal enemy combatants, and partially because the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay is not U.S. soil. A less generous characterization of this policy would be "I'm The Decider, and I say that we don't have to give these mopes a fair trial, 'cause they tried to kill Americans."

The problem with this is that it undermines the basic legal right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for even the vilest criminal to have access to a fair trial. I'm not defending the detainees, or even questioning the rightness of their detention. However much I might despise their actions, though, I still want them to have their day in court. That way, when we convict them, we can say that they're objectively guilty as the result of a legitimate legal process, not just victims of a kangaroo court fueled by righteous patriotic vengeance.

The War on Terror isn't just about blowing stuff up in Afghanistan. It's also about preserving and expanding the rights and liberties that have made life in the U.S. the envy of the world. When we sacrifice our core values for the sake of vengeance, our enemies win.