July 9, 2009
Secrecy is an evil. It not only (obviously) interferes with the free flow of information, it also corrodes much of our interaction with other human beings. Secrecy is a kind of cheating.
Worse, because of all-pervading secrecy, most of us erroneously assume that most of us are honest, trustworthy, truthful, faithful … all the Boy Scout virtues. When someone, famous politician or not, is ‘found out’, shock and disgust follow. But we are all like that, aren’t we? Because we’re human. Disregarding a few saints (who may have spiritual secrets of their own), we are all, as the old phrase goes, “no better than we ought to be.”
Advocates of secrecy have two major arguments:
1) Danger: Some information is so dangerous it must be kept secret. Consider this (fictional) secret: “How to brew a deadly and undetectable poison from common household chemicals.” Shouldn’t this information be kept secret?
Yes, but not only from you and me; from everyone. No one should know this information, not merely those who claim to have the welfare of all of us as their dearest wish (and who would that be? governments? oh, really?)
2) Information overload: To be told everything is to be overwhelmed with information, most of it trivial and pointless. A thought experiment: You are sitting on a commuter bus where, in the seat directly behind you, someone is talking loudly and endlessly about his operations, job, or grandchildren; perhaps all three. Don’t you just wish he would keep this information to himself? Keep it ‘secret’?
The solution here is to have our own information filters: scan everything; take in whatever we want; ignore the rest. In the instant situation, a pair of good earplugs is advisable (whenever you use mass transit, actually). Except in a business meeting where you’re required to pay attention, or at a cocktail party you can’t avoid, a wide variety of filters are available, including just staying away. Use them.
Consider the red-light traffic camera: It works (reduces traffic accidents) only if people know it’s there. Nuclear weapons only work for a state (contribute to its power) if other states know it’s there. (Consider how carefully Israel has let it be supposed that they have nuclear weapons, even if they won’t admit it publicly.)
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged secrecy, secrets | Leave a Comment »
July 9, 2009
You have heard it asked “Are you questioning my motives?”, as if there were something wrong with this. And the conventional answer is “No; of course not. I certainly wouldn’t do that.”
Consider: Our motives guide our actions; they have grown up with us and are an essential part of who each of us is. You cannot understand another person without knowing, at least to some extent, his motives. To ignore motives is to deal with persons as if they were machines. Perhaps some people would prefer to be (treated as) machines. For the rest of us, inquiry as to motives is always germane.
Do we always understand our motives? Of course not. At times, other people know our motives better than we do. But the impossible goal of knowing our own minds should never be abandoned. Dialog with others can help make it so.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged motives, questioning motives | Leave a Comment »
July 9, 2009
From the brochure “Playing It Safe on the W&OD Trail”:
“Always look ahead for obstacles such as gates, potholes and other trail users, etc.”
You didn’t know that potholes were considered trail users? Reluctance to place a comma before the “and” in a list of three or more items often results in ludicrous statements such as this.
More seriously, such (mis-)usage often results in ambiguity, confusion, and loss of meaning.
Consider how professional speakers (such as TV and radio news reporters) almost always pause before the “and” in these cases; they are mentally inserting the comma, exactly where it should be.
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Posted in Language | Tagged comma, commas, Oxford comma | Leave a Comment »
July 9, 2009
Brian Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day (7 July 2009) holds, in part:
“ ‘Jr.’ and ‘Sr.’ aren’t used unless the names are identical. So the second Bush president (George W[alker] Bush) is not a junior, the father’s name being George Herbert Walker Bush. But some journalists use ‘Jr.’ and ‘Sr.’ as a kind of loose shorthand {Bush Sr. / Bush Jr.}.”
“When the names are identical” is a matter of context: how the names are spoken or written in a particular book, broadcast, etc. Although Garner is correct that “George W. Bush” should not be written “George W. Bush, Jr.” (because the elder Bush is not “George W.”, but “George H.W.”), the following pair should be acceptable:
George Bush, Sr.
George Bush, Jr.
It is only in contexts that include middle names or initials that the names, as written, become un-identical. Therefore, the “loose shorthand” is correct.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged suffixes, junior, senior | Leave a Comment »
July 9, 2009
Received 06 July 09: Email “Restoring password — press to go to site.”
The email was from someone named “Swindle Kraig.” Tends to make one suspicious.
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged spoofing | Leave a Comment »
June 14, 2009
Remember the proverbial “cold-blooded killer”? We used to consider him more to blame than the killer who strikes in an excess of emotion, hate, or rage. But now the tables are turned.
Since when does a person’s emotional state, when he commits a crime, render him liable to more severe punishment than if he had not experienced the emotion of hate? Since the passage of “hate” crime legislation, that’s when.
Mental states have long been recognized as increasing, or at times mitigating, guilt. Consider: murder v manslaughter, and ‘criminal intent’. But these are matters of intention.Until recently, emotion has been considered relevant to neither crime nor punishment.
It is sometimes said that crimes against “people due to personal attributes beyond their control” (http://moran.house.gov) deserve extra punishment. This position is at least arguable, although I disagree **. But to tie this to “hate” is irrelevant: a man may murder a black person just because he is black, in cold blood. Why should his punishment be more severe if, instead of ‘cold’ his blood were hot
at the time /
of the crime?
____________________
** You are responsible for who you are and what you are, no matter how God or Darwin rolled the dice, no matter whether you could ‘help it’, or not: No excuses.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions, Language | Tagged crime and punishment, hate crimes | Leave a Comment »
June 14, 2009
[Received in a junk email, complete; verbatim. Not trying to sell me anything, so why send? “Luting acuity” is nice, though...]
Hi
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chump graft rococo coatee.
brazil coatee sin.
tandem public emir cashew!
pupa ragout.
acuity feel lives sin?
sell gypsa warble public.
elan brazil how fiber.
voter sniffy lumper.
sap shrink reflux.
ladder pant swathe.
swathe coatee pant.
lives estop cue seer?
feel bounty cue.
blase bingo chalk foci!
bay oakery graft hubby?
potion glover.
sap attic potion.
give nimbus smelt slam.
peso cue agile lipped?
gas elan public flake.
gooey sniffy luting acuity?
seer seer slam find!
bingo hubby.
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged found poems, junk emails | Leave a Comment »
June 14, 2009
Following are verbatim excerpts from various junk mails I’ve received that relate to sex — not including the really gross ones, just the pathetic ones.
===
Bigger your ShortPenis – 100% Natural EnlargementPills is Safe & Effective! cvjd xn
===
Male perfection advice
You’ll call it Peter the Great
===
Why suffering from impossibility of keeping it hard when you can make it stay like a tree!
===
Hi Guidroz Its me, Lady
No more shame and uncertainty. This is your damn meat device and it will raise your lady to heavens
===
strengthen and harden your erections
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in Rawalpindi in
===
Check it
How please knocking-out hottie
===
Hallo!
My penis is not only longer and wider, but with a higher level of confidence I feel like a new manster python? That’s what I ask myself now.
===
Make her your rod’s slave
When you are aged and never give up, it gives your he confidence, at any chance, at any place
===
Why do you send my this?
For men who want their women to value them as loving monsters.
===
What now?
Your broad won’t need to wait for your “go up” reaction.
===
Be so kind as to read this please
Compelling force will try to tear your zipper every time you’ll be with a girl.
===
Want your MAN Area Extended? Try our Sample
===
Unleash lion inside you!
===
Your woman wants your python to be the best worker of the year
===
You’ll surprise her with your Hulk
baraggnag utndrieug
agrpgngnop pigaier
oeopa ebugtapara
===
===
Mutant worms appeared in US
Any short stimulation from your girl and your manhood is hard and ready
===
Exclude flaccid hose risk
===
Wang will feel like wood
===
Energy for infatuations!
keooe aagbgndnbd
aappd gdiuao
===
Become ED-resistant MAN.
Dreaming about the real ramming machine in pants? Easy deal!
===
If night are not hot enough, this pilule will light the fire again
dopeiag iiprap nannaob
uurane raatgru dgna
gnaep aggrnn bagia
gn itog aaaoba pn rgo
===
You’re the Cove,’ he said, ‘for me
Though you’re such a Hoddy Doddy And all the Sailors and Admirals cried
ryqen hibia
===
Use mind to improve your fang
===
With this you will go through your girl like a bulldozer.
===
Solution for men, who feel that they can give more satisfaction to girls.
Why lie? I need money.
===
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged junk emails;sex | Leave a Comment »
May 28, 2009
Marriage is none of government’s business. Marriage was formerly, and is still in many places even today, a relationship that fits within the ceremonies and customs of a religion, not of a state; and it should stay that way.
Why? Because the government has no competence to set rules for or govern intimate relationships between persons **; and because it claims a monopoly on the use of force. Is that the kind of foundation you want for your marriage?
Does government have any valid concerns here? Only two: (a) Protecting minor children and other persons from harm, and (b) Providing a court system that may enforce, if called upon, contractual relationships (such as civil unions). These functions have nothing to do with marriage, per se; they apply to everyone regardless of marital status.
Ideally, all relationships commonly called ‘marriages’ are really civil unions. Partners in a civil union may also seek a true marriage, that is, performed by a minister or similar religious figure. Those who are non-religious will happily avoid this unnecessary complication.
** Perhaps priests and rabbis don’t, either; but that’s a different question.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged civil unions, gay marriage, marriage | Leave a Comment »
May 28, 2009
A very personal view of great science fiction films, not including TV series or made-for-TV movies:
1. Top ten modern sci-fi films, in alpha order:
Alien (director’s cut)
Alien 3 (theatrical release version)
Bladerunner (‘final’ director’s cut)
Brazil (original uncut version)
Clockwork Orange
Final Cut
Minority Report
Paycheck (with the deleted scenes; some of these make essential plot points)
Rollerball (1975, not the remake)
Twelve Monkeys (and the original, La Jetee)
2. Honorable Mention:
Dark City (original version now finally released, without the Kiefer Sutherland prologue)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978- the one with Donald Sutherland)
Children of Men
The Man Who Fell to Earth
3. “More than the sum of its parts”: Individual films are weak, but the series as a whole adds up:
Terminator 1, 2, 3
Cube 1, 2, 0 [‘0’ must be seen last]
4. Special award for brilliant concept though movie not so good:
The 13th Floor
5. Dubious award for an underscore so excellent it pulls your attention away from the screen:
Paycheck (music by John Powell)
<END>
Posted in Film | Tagged alien 3, films, movies, sci-fi films, science fiction, science fiction films | Leave a Comment »
May 28, 2009
Try these out:
.. Biologer
.. Americer
.. Quakist
.. Hikist (or ‘Bikist’)
.. Triflist (= Trifler)
.. Philosophist
.. Fidgetee (one subjected to fidgeting by others)
.. Fiddlant (Fiddler)
.. Dabblian (Dabbler)
.. Piqueur (one who piques, e.g., your interest)
An interesting diversion; a Mensa party-game.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged suffixes | Leave a Comment »
May 28, 2009
‘Ethicists’ appear regularly on radio and TV these days, giving their sage pronouncements. They used to ground their opinions on principles: ‘greatest good for the greatest number’; or ‘duty’; or ‘virtue’. Well-thought-out theories that have been argued at length by many bright people.
But no longer. Now they are pleased merely to give pronouncements, accompanied by a satisfactory amount of vigorous arm-waving. But without a showing of reasons and principles, there is no more reason to listen to them than to anyone else on the same subject: they have lost their claim to having any sort of special knowledge or insight.
Good, then, for Ronald Dworkin. He’s discussing law, but his position holds also for ethics:
“[The Supreme Court] can find its moral authority only in the character of the reasons it offers for its decisions. It has a sovereign responsibility to show that its judgments are grounded in principles that can responsibly be claimed to be premises of America’s democracy. [Justices] must say enough, in important and controversial decisions about constitutional rights, to indicate the principled basis of their decision and show that they understand and accept at least the obvious further commitments those principles require.”
(Ronald Dworkin, “Looking for Cass Sunstein”. New York Review of Books, 30 April, 2009, page 32. Abridged; emphasis added)
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged ethical principles, ethics, metaethics, principles, Ronald Dworkin | Leave a Comment »
May 28, 2009
Concept for a short story:
The future: All those on death row are released to serve life terms. But the government has realized that, although killing its own citizens represents the ultimate expression of state power and serves as a useful caution to its citizens, it is no longer necessary to indiscriminately kill dozens or hundreds of people each year: a single death will do.
The government has also realized that the death of a common rapist or murderer, no matter how deserved, does not fully engage the passions of the public. The scum, they will say, have their reward; and they will shrug their shoulders.
No, there is a difference between the merely brutal and the truly evil, they say. And so the one man or woman to be killed each year, with full offices and ceremonies of state, must be evil. Only in this way can the public be fully engaged, complicit, equally guilty with the state in the commission of this killing. So the quest began for the single most evil man in the country. Not an easy quest, because members of the government were exempted by statute, as were the leading professional sports figures, college deans, and of course lawyers. Other protected classes were added, the deserving poor, the undeserving poor, the huddled masses, the rich, the very rich, and … and …..
And that is why Melvin H. Robertson, an insurance adjuster from Campbellsburg, Indiana, the only one in America not exempted from capital punishment, found himself one day on death row.
<END>
Posted in Fiction, Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged capital punishment, executions | Leave a Comment »
May 8, 2009
The comma serves three masters: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Sometimes [,] these masters may be at odds.
(1) Consider this sentence from a short story: “After dinner I carried out the garbage.” Grammar requires a comma after ‘dinner’, and normally the writer should provide one. But consider rhetoric: we may want the comma there, or not, depending on how the writer is shaping the story’s rhythm and narrative voice. The choice is a judgment as to which master must prevail this time.
(2) Sometimes none of the masters is happy. Consider this sentence (from Dana Milbank’s column in the Washington Post, 1 May 2009):
“The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine whether merchant ships need private or military security on board.”
This sentence could mean either:
(a) “The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine whether merchant ships need private or military security on board, or no security at all.”
or
(b) “The stated purpose of the hearing was to examine who should provide on-board security for merchant ships: private firms or the military.”
<END>
Posted in Fiction, Language | Tagged comma, punctuation | Leave a Comment »
May 8, 2009
Coercive plans to limit population need not be cruel or Malthusian. Consider this one:
Each woman in the world would have, by right, two child-birth licenses. One of them she could sell, at the prevailing market rate, if she wished (a kind of ‘cap and trade’); or she could choose to give birth. The second license would be for her use alone, and could not be sold or given away. If a child dies in childhood, an additional license would be granted to the mother. If a woman declines to have a child or any children at all, that would be her sole decision.
This plan would improve the wealth and power of women everywhere in the world, especially in poor countries. And each woman would still have the right to bear one child; two, if she chooses.
World population would decrease slowly and steadily to some agreed sustainable level; then the policy could be liberalized.
BUT … even if we agree that this is a workable and humane plan, who would initiate it? Who would administer it? How could it be enforced? How would cheaters be detected? punished?
This population plan, like all the others that have been proposed, no matter how attractive in theory, are doomed to failure. We are wired, by God or evolution (probably both), to breed.
<END>
Posted in population control | Tagged population control | Leave a Comment »
May 8, 2009
1) The Optimum Population Trust (optimumpopulation.org) says –
“Too many people: Earth’s population problem.
“The world’s population is expected to grow by another 2.3 billion, from 6.8 billion in 2009 to 9.1 billion in 2050.
“Human consumption of renewable resources is already overshooting Earth’s capacity to provide. Resources are becoming scarcer and the number of hungry people increasing year by year.
“Reversing population growth is one of the measures needed to ensure environmental survival.”
Fine so far. Unfortunately, OPT goes on to say “It can be done by voluntary and peaceful means,” and, on another OPT web page,
“The Optimum Population Trust is absolutely opposed to any form of coercion in family planning.”
Sorry, Charlie. Voluntary population reduction hasn’t worked. Won’t work. We have a real ‘tragedy of the commons’ here. Neither extreme poverty nor relative wealth nor earnest moral suasion have stopped people from uncontrolled breeding.
2) Lester Brown (Scientific American Magazine [on line], April 22, 2009):
“Many of [failing states’] problems stem from a failure to slow the growth of their populations. … Stabilizing population and eradicating poverty go hand in hand. In fact, the key to accelerating the shift to smaller families is eradicating poverty — and vice versa. One way is to ensure at least a primary school education for all children, girls as well as boys. Another is to provide rudimentary, village-level health care, so that people can be confident that their children will survive to adulthood. Women everywhere need access to reproductive health care and family-planning services.”
Brown’s plan may slow population growth; it probably would. But not reverse it. And, health and education initiatives in many parts of the world are failing just because population is growing uncontrollably faster than health and education can keep up.
3) Ted Turner wants to reduce human population “humanely”, which he defines as voluntarily. (NPR interview, 7 May 2009). But we already have too many people for sustainability, and the number is still growing.
Coercion: Giving up one freedom, the freedom to breed without limit, is necessary if we want to preserve all our other freedoms, and if we want to avoid the eventual Great Die-Off.
<END>
Posted in population control | Leave a Comment »
May 8, 2009
(The following extracts are verbatim. Most appear to show a high level of performance anxiety, and a lot of aggression]
===
Carnal revitalizer!
===
Doping for your porksword!
===
Revitalize your porkmonster!
===
Fill your bed partner’s brain with the excitement and satisfaction.
===
Do your girl more than in time, when you were 18.
===
Everything will go right in bed, if you swallow this blue pilule.
===
Give your weenie some boost and no girl will laugh.
===
Get unfailing manhood.
===
So, need you letter.
===
Where to go, when you want to buy anti-anxiety goods? Nowhere, just click and get your goods delivered.
===
If you want to be all the time confident in yourself and archive everything you want in every bed.
===
Power up your gun and conquer ladies’ hearts.
===
Why couldn’t men enlarge love-sticks?
===
Click below links to add some Inches to your Manhood.
===
Problems in Getting the Sex Lifee You Want and Deserve – Starting With F
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To intiere perfection the servis of warre two them both stain, their followers, o king, filled.
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Or two’s quiet in our own home, with carry and which has walls and a trench full of water on extermination of the kshatriya race. There is eternal lord viz. Isana, in all their successive citizens, they will do their duty, and do it more thomas jefferson was speaking. When abe finished never forget. It was a young girl, very slight, capsules of gold, hermetically closed on both having said these words, hrishikesa quickly urged middle of the road, and glared at him with a terrible hat and coat and goes out. Come in here, cries in the tents of the wealthy. I’m so glad we’re.
===
Your wife’s compartmen unlocks the jewel case drops off the
===
Others envied. If my mistress does nothing that
===
In morality and profit and were kind to all creatures. Further into a work of a thousand lessons. In even arthur thought it would make him sick, and boulle sent to his soninlaw the sum of four thousand of a moment the evervictorious arjuna stringed.
===
Gain the full control over your drilling machine.
===
Walls of weakness will fall crushed by you new mighty manhood.
===
Make your King-Kong twice larger.
===
Ears with statistics proving that people today a feeling could be roused in her. Will had been is all! You do not doubt that! Tell me one word only with it, said rosamund or the malachite table. Been going on in this island, and i’ll put one.
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged sex junk emails | Leave a Comment »
May 8, 2009
“THERE are few ways”, said Samuel Johnson, “in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.”
– but Johnson had never met a hedge fund manager.
From The Economist print edition, 23 December 1999
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged money, Samuel Johnson | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009
What’s wrong with the world society we have built? It’s threatening to destroy itself. This has been true for all of human history, but now we can actually do it, pushing and tugging each other in all directions. What’s needed, as Anakin said, is a strong leader. But human leaders are infected with the same problems the rest of us have, disastrously so; and God seems to have no interest in saving us from ourselves, the ultimate strong leader being occupied with his own ends, largely to our detriment.
<END>
Posted in God, Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged strong leader | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009
New Scientist magazine recently published the following item:
“FINALLY, recognising the achievements of ethics departments everywhere, the Ig Nobel peace prize went to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biology “for adopting the principle that plants have dignity”. In a document titled “The dignity of living beings with regard to plants”, the committee concludes that causing “arbitrary harm” to plants is “morally impermissible”. Feedback wholeheartedly agrees, and thanks the committee for the excuse to stop mowing the lawn and weeding the garden.
(Source: Issue 2677 of New Scientist magazine, 08 October 2008, page 80)
I believe New Scientist’s attitude is, from an ethical point of view, naive and also incoherent. If you value life, you will not destroy or harm it without good reason. Whatever a ‘good reason’ might be, it certainly does not include killing for pleasure. If killing animals for mere enjoyment is wrong (as I believe it is), it is also true that killing trees for mere enjoyment is also wrong. Both represent life, and both have, from a God’s-eye point of view, equal worth. Contra Kant, the famous saying goes “It is not whether animals think, it is whether they suffer.” But consider: is anesthetizing an animal before snuffing out its life acceptable solely on grounds that the animal did not suffer, if it would not be acceptable otherwise? Hardly. Suffering is not relevant to the ethical decision here; arbitrary denial of life, as if we had the moral right to make such decisions, is the issue.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged arbitrary killing, right to life, rights of plants, Swiss Federal Ethics Committee | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009
“In a famous exchange with the poet Ann Lauterbach, Lauterbach exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Ashbery, I love clichés,” to which [John] Ashbery replied, “And they love you.” Clichés and stereotypes are Ashbery’s expressive unit. Cliché was originally a typesetter’s term for those plates devoted not to individual letters but to phrases so common that a slug was molded for them. Cliché is language that has been repeated so often it becomes infinitely repeatable. It “loves us” because it is inevitable; we “love it” as a way of mastering, by ingenious bricolage, the language that saturates us anyway.”
– Note how the writer carefully avoids using clichés in this passage!
(Source: Dan Chiasson, “John Ashbery: ‘Look, Gesture, Hearsay’ ”. New York Review of Books, 9 April 2009, p63f.)
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged cliches | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009
Recently, an on-line writer objected to the idea of online-only friendships, where the people involved have never physically met. According to him, friendship must be based on an in-person encounter, even if conducted electronically thereafter. How are we to determine, after all, that our online ‘friend’ is not just a computer program?
I want to agree with him. Really. There is nothing to equal a physical meeting of two or more persons, whether intimate or not. On line, we don’t pick up the other person’s body language (part biological, part cultural, part individual), his unique odor, nor his distinctive physical response to us. Electronically, face and tone of voice do not have the presence and nuance they do in person. Persons are not disembodied minds, nor even embodied minds: they are unique physical presences, only part of which is driven by the mind.
That said, I have regretfully to disagree with the writer. If you will remember your own past friendships and how they grew (or failed to grow), you will sense that “friendship” is an emotion. Like all emotions, it combines the physical and the mental; but the emotion of friendship seems unique, distinct from other emotions such as love or admiration.
As an emotion, friendship arises and exists within the subject (you). It is your response to someone or something that you conceive to be another person. That is, it is entirely subjective.
While online-only friendships are only pale simulacra of the real thing, they do occur, and in many ‘normal’ people at that.
______________
Note: I use “person” as the most general term for a being that (a) recognizes itself as distinct from all others of its kind, and (b) can interact appropriately with at least some other beings, that is, has a social role. Human beings, dogs, horses, cats, most other mammals, many birds, etc. etc., unless severely brain-damaged or dead, are therefore persons. A computer program can satisfy condition (b), but it would be difficult to know what we could mean if we assert that a program could satisfy condition (a).
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged emotions, friendship | Leave a Comment »
April 12, 2009
Remember the old joke? A routine questionnaire asks your name, date of birth, and sex, and for ‘sex’ you write ‘yes, please’, or ‘as often as possible’, or ‘not yet, but I’m still hopeful’?
Our language should not change just because people don’t understand it or are simply thoughtless (the origin, apparently, of ‘one of the only’), or are trying to be cute (the historical origin of pronouncing ‘one’ as ‘won’, some scholars believe.) Language should change only when there is good reason for it to change, such as:
.. Increased richness
.. Avoidance of unintentional ambiguity
.. Improved consistency
and, as relevant here,
.. Better distinction between oft-confused words
‘Sex’, before a few years ago, was ambiguous. It could mean sexual activity such as intercourse, or it could indicate the male/female distinction. These two very different meanings were frequently confused, sometimes on purpose; see the old joke in the first paragraph. Women’s groups made the valid point that ‘female sex’ too strongly emphasizes the sexual-activity meaning of ‘sex’, whereas the most important male/female distinctions are cultural, or in other ways have little or nothing to do with sexual activity. ‘Gender’, formerly a term used in linguistics, was adopted in place of ‘sex’ to emphasize this point.
Some writers, while accepting this use of ‘gender’, urge that dogs, cattle, giraffes, etc., do not have ‘gender’, since they have little or nothing in the way of culture; they have ‘sex’ in both senses.
I believe this just confuses the issue, and unnecessarily distances us from our fellow animals as well. I use ‘sex’ to mean sexual activity in any species, and ‘gender’ to indicate any (warranted) male/female distinction in any species; and I urge you to do likewise.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged gender, sex | Leave a Comment »
April 12, 2009
A group of young people think of themselves as historians and relic-hunters, although they are mainly just looking for a good time. They’ve heard of a housing development dating from 1957 that was bought en bloc by a developer and is about to be demolished so a ‘new town’ can be built. By the time they hear of it, about half the houses have already been demolished.
Their interest is to find original fallout shelters that hadn’t been converted to wine cellars, etc., and would provide a time capsule into 1950’s America. They figure that at least some of the houses must have been built with fallout shelters, and in the 60 years since, entrances might have been obscured, new owners may never have known about the shelters, etc. How to find the shelters? Few houses in the County have basements, and so the group’s semi-pro sonar equipment should be able to identify spaces that had been dug under houses or nearby. Especially, an empty space not directly under a house could quite possibly have been a shelter.
Careful to evade any security patrols, they enter the development about dusk and methodically explore it block by block. After an hour they find evidence of an old shelter, but it had been converted long ago into a storage area for broken appliances, potatoes whose long eyes search for soil, Mason jars of applesauce. Another three hours, two more ‘hits’ but no original, undisturbed shelters. Then finally, on one street, a house had been demolished (and wreckage not yet hauled away) but there is a hinged steel plate in the back yard which the sonar reveals to have space underneath it. The plate had been bricked over, and a picnic table set on top. With much effort, they remove the bricks and pry up the steel plate, brace it to keep it from falling back, find a wooden ladder (almost rotten) and descend. They find another door, and inside it an undisturbed fallout shelter (describe) with a manually operated generator sufficient to power a few lights, an air filter, and a short-wave radio. There is plenty of canned food, a bunk-bed, etc. Poking around, they find some old money, a family photo album, etc. They find a bottle of whiskey, pass it around, spend several hours there.
About dawn the next day, they carefully photograph everything and then select their ‘souvenirs’. Just as they are preparing to ascend, they hear a roaring sound. (They find out later, or surmise, that) a bulldozer has pushed the remains of the house to one side, unintentionally flipping the steel plate back on top of the shelter and covering it with at least a ton of broken timber and other wreckage.
Realizing their situation, they determine that:
.. They have enough food and water to last for two weeks.
.. The air filter still works, and they have an adequate air supply
.. The short-wave radio works, but the emergency frequencies it is capable of broadcasting on have been abandoned for decades, bandwidth used for other purposes.
There are rays of hope:
.. Friends know approximately where they were going, and why, and may become alarmed after a few days
.. It may be possible to modify the short wave radio settings to broadcast on a heavily used channel
.. There are a few tools in the shelter. It may be possible to dig sideways until they reckon they are free of the remains of the house overhead, then dig straight up (but, they don’t know which way, if any, would be shorter).
So — what happens next? What interpersonal chaos results? Tell us about the people.
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged fallout shelter, story idea, story ideas | Leave a Comment »
April 12, 2009
1870, Paris: The starving hordes attack the zoo and eat the animals. **
1870, Paris, alternative history: The starving hordes attack the zoo. The zoo-keepers eat them. They give the less-desirable body parts to the animals.
** This is, apparently, historical fact.
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged 1870, Franco-Prussian War, Paris zoo, story idea, story ideas | Leave a Comment »
April 12, 2009
Anne’s younger sister Marcia joins a cult of fanatics living in squalor in an old house. After two years, Marcia tries to leave the cult, is relentlessly harassed by the cult members, pestered day and night, brow-beaten, compelled to witness at their meetings, etc. They make her life the proverbial living hell. After several more months, Marcia, in desperation, kills herself.
Anne, blaming herself (perhaps unjustly) for not having done enough to prevent Marcia’s suicide, founds an activist group dedicated to preventing young people from joining cults.
The group draws in other affected people, is immediately successful. It receives grants, starts an online newsletter, establishes a modest office in the low-rent district. Anne quits her job, begins to give very successful lectures, appears frequently on television. The movement grows, has a Board of Directors and officers, grants, a growing budget.
After two years, Anne is burned out and feels that she has done all she can for the group. She attempts to resign. The Board refuses her letter of resignation. She quits anyway. She is relentlessly harassed by the group’s members, pestered day and night, brow-beaten, compelled to give more and more lectures, solicit more and more donations, speak at group meetings, etc. They make her life the proverbial living hell. After several more months, Anne, in desperation, kills herself.
Anne’s older sister, Helen, blaming herself (perhaps unjustly) for not having done enough . . . . . . .
Posted in Fiction | Tagged cults, story idea, story ideas | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2009
Correspondence To and From the Post’s Ombudsman
1. to Andrew Alexander, 22 February, 2009 via email
Congratulations and my sympathies on your new position.
In one of her last columns, Deborah Howell mentioned that she had long advocated making the Post’s code of ethics public (as is the New York Times’ code), but that she had failed to persuade Post management to do so. Perhaps you can have more success. As a sometime instructor in ethics (GMU Learning in Retirement Institute), I believe that keeping a code of ethics secret from affected publics and stakeholders (subscribers) is itself ethically questionable.
Having published the code, Post readers will have better tools for understanding why news stories are written the way they are, and interpreting the information they contain.
ASNE.org contains a version of the Post’s code of ethics — from ten years ago. The code has doubtless been updated several times since then, and in any case there should be a prominent link to the code from the Post’s home page.
Best wishes,
Terence Kuch
2. from Andrew Alexander, 22 February, 2009 via email
Thanks for your e-mail. That’s a topic I intend to address at some point – either in a column or in the weekly internal note I do for the staff (it also goes to top management).
Best wishes,
Andy Alexander
Washington Post Ombudsman
3. Ombudsman column, Washington Post, 5 April 2009, page A17 [abridged]
Got Rules? Then Don’t Be Afraid to Share Them
Newspapers demand accountability and transparency from the institutions they cover. But when it comes to The Post, one of the world’s best-known media institutions, the attitude seems to be: Good for thee, but not for me. The Post keeps its journalistic policies largely hidden, making it virtually impossible for readers to know the paper’s ethical and journalistic standards.
The public should be able to easily access them online. It’s not merely right but also smart to be transparent at a time when The Post is trying to hold on to readers.
A number of newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, post their policies online. A dated version of The Post’s policies made its way years ago onto the Web site of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (http://www.asne.org) and can still be found with a little digging.
The issues are numerous. What are the ethical standards for editing visual images or audio content? What rules should govern the treatment of information obtained through Twitter or social networking sites such as Facebook? What are the policies for posting user-generated content, such as photos? What are the verification guidelines for linking to non-Post material from The Post’s Web site?
A separate question is whether The Post adheres to the policies in place. In my first two months as ombudsman, I’ve found a disturbing lack of attention to the standards and ethics rules.
New hires are taught about them as part of their orientation. But a surprising number of staffers told me it’s been years since they reviewed them. And several said they simply don’t adhere to some of the policies on confidential sources, including a requirement that “the source of anything that appears in the paper will be known to at least one editor.”
Why have policies if they aren’t followed?
One way to ensure adherence is to let the public see them. Readers are smart, and many are darn good at holding reporters accountable through what we in the business call “prosecutorial editing.”
It takes a leap of faith to make the policies public. But a good newspaper, confident that it can meet its own high standards, should welcome the scrutiny.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged code of ethics, ethics, ombudsman, Washington Post | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2009
“A Chinese employee of an Internet café surnamed Mu said the streets of Aba were largely empty.”
Glad to know that Internet cafes have surnames!
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged comma, comma abuse | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2009
(Like ergonomics, but highly sententious.)
1. The Samsung Instinct cell phone ** displays “speaker on” when the speaker is off, and “speaker off” when the speaker is on. It makes a kind of weird sense, after a while …. But I would have preferred the displays to read “turn speaker on” and “turn speaker off”.
2. Remember when cars still had door keys, not things you clicked and hoped the thing’s battery wasn’t dead yet? Well, some cars still require keys, including my car, and several of the cars I’ve rented the past few years.
On my car, turning the key ‘forward’ from either the driver’s or rider’s side (i.e., turning the top of the key toward the front of the car) unlocks; and turning the key ‘backwards’, locks. This makes enormous sense to me, perhaps because my car is German, and so am I (by descent).
BUT, some cars require you to turn the key ‘backwards’. Now this, like the Instinct’s ‘speaker’ display, has perhaps a kind of perverse logic to it.
BUT BUT, other cars require you to turn the key in a different direction, depending on which side of the car you are on. This makes no sense at all.
Back to the clicker!
** The Instinct is a wonderful phone, iPhone-ish, but it has two advantages over the Apple product ***: (1) Minor advantage: it gives you tactile feedback when you touch a screen object; and (2) Major advantage: you can use a stylus to pick out names, web addresses, etc. on the onboard keyboard if you wish. I don’t have fat fingers, but I have the devil’s own time trying to press the right keys on the iPhone’s soft keyboard, and the iPhone won’t recognize a stylus touch, just a finger or perhaps some other warm and flexible body part.
*** Actually, I have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone; but they are the same except for cell phone capability.
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged automobile door keys, ergonomics, Samsung Instinct | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2009
Thousands Flee Fargo as Floodwaters Surge in N.D.
Washington Post, March 28, 2009, page A4
Fargo, N.D. — As thousands of residents left North Dakota’s largest city Friday, others stayed and prayed that miles of sandbagged levees would hold against the surging Red River.
“It’s to the point now where I think we’ve done everything we can,” said resident Dave Davis, whose neighborhood was filled with backhoes and tractors building an earthen levee. “The only thing now is divine intervention.”
(Isn’t that what they’ve been suffering from?)
= = = = =
[Can there be an evil god? Is the concept contradictory? In the book of Job, Yahweh certainly seems to be evil, but that’s only from the point of view of Job’s dead sons, and his dead servants, and his dead sheep). In the end, Job’s faith was rewarded with seven new sons (among other gifts) -- as if his sons were all just interchangeable, no matter about the first batch now that he has more.]
<END>
Posted in God | Tagged Book of Job, divine intervention, evil god, God | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2009
Imagine yourself a member of a hunter-gatherer tribe, say, 4000 years ago. You have plenty of time to observe the world around you. In fact, as a hunter or gatherer, closely observing the natural world is essential to your survival.
Every year or two your tribe’s purposeful wanderings return to the same hunting-ground. One of the things you notice is that certain large rocks, which you thought the solidest of things, have come apart, not merely chipped off the edges but sometimes split right down the middle, straight or jagged. You notice this phenomenon in every rocky region you come to; it is very common. Being a wonderer as well as a wanderer, you ponder how rocks come to be split. Surely no merely human agency could do it.
Perhaps you hit upon an answer involving freezing and thawing, or the growth of tree-roots. But then a more complex question occurs to you: you see many rocks broken to pieces large or small, but you never find any rocks put back together. In time, you think, every rock must break up, until the world be made of pebbles. Therefore, the world had a beginning, when all rocks were whole, or perhaps the world was originally just one very large rock.
Given that a few more rocks crack each year, you count them and form, gradually, a rough guess as to the age of the earth. If your tribe has the concept of “billion years”, or “myriads of kalpas”, you think those would be too long a time. But perhaps two thousand years before your birth …
Yes, that sounds about right.
addendum: Most scientists had figured the age of the Earth at billions of years before they could explain why all the world’s rocks have not already become pebbles. The answer has only come in my lifetime, with the discovery of plate tectonics.
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged age of the earth, creationism, split rocks | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2009
“ ‘This planet is heavily contaminated with life as we know it,’ says Shelley Copley, a biochemist at the University of Colorado.”
– New Scientist, 14 March 2009, page 32
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged contamination, environmentalism, life | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2009
“Center” means “middle”, either literally or figuratively. It does not mean “place” or “site”, unless that place or site happens to be, essentially and not merely accidentally, at the middle of something.
The use of “center” to mean place or site, or establishment or organization (which began about 1960, apparently) serves no useful purpose and contributes yet another jot to the universal confusion.
The established idiom is “center of…”, not “center for…”. Mentally substitute “middle” for “center”, and you’ll see what I mean.
(Footnote: In a show of delicacy, an institution at John Jay College calls itself “Center on Terrorism”, not “Center for Terrorism”.)
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged center;idioms | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2009
“Special” used to mean nothing more than “sort or kind”; then, a readily extended meaning, “exceptional” or “unusual”. Then, because notable things are exceptional (or they wouldn’t be notable), it came to mean “notable; excellent”. For years, Buick sold a line of cars called the “Buick Special”. There was nothing very unusual about them, but they were asserted, by their press agents, to be notable and excellent.
When did “special” come to mean “inferior” or “below normal in a given respect”? When people decided to hide uncomfortable reality behind pretty, inoffensive words; and worse, when they learned to write Newspeak, where words mean their opposites.
And Buick doesn’t make a “Special” any more.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged euphemism, Newspeak, Special | Leave a Comment »
March 17, 2009
The following quotation is from www.sciam.com, accessed 16 March 2009 [slightly abridged]:
“Every environmental problem is ultimately a population problem. If the world’s population were only 100 million, we would be hard-pressed to generate enough waste to overwhelm nature’s cleanup systems. Population experts agree that the best way to limit population is to educate women and raise the standard of living generally in developing countries. But that strategy cannot possibly happen quickly enough to put a dent in the population on any useful timescale. The U.N. projects that the planet will have to sustain another 2.6 billion people by 2050. But even at the current population level of 6.5 billion, we’re using up resources at an unsustainable rate. There is no way to reduce the population significantly without trampling egregiously on individual rights (as China has done with its one-child policy), encouraging mass suicide, or worse. None of those proposals seems preferable to focusing directly on less wasteful use of resources.”
===== BUT THAT WON’T WORK — attempting to solve the problem through ‘less wasteful use of resources’ is an absurd dream; we’ll never be able to un-waste ourselves out of our mess even with today’s population, much less the future’s. Seems to me, we can either (a) Restrict human reproduction, starting as soon as possible, until we reach a sustainable number of people on this planet, or (b) Wait for our inevitable die-off, when we take with us most of our fellow mammals and everything else but bugs and slugs.
Alternative (a) will be unpleasant and repressive, but no one need be physically hurt.
Alternative (b) will bring millions (at least) of agonizing deaths and, probably, devastating resource wars as well. And even then, we will leave a ruined earth.
What will it be, brother?
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged overpopulation, population, population bomb, population control, population crisis | Leave a Comment »
March 17, 2009
Prolongeed erectionn Click HERE
=====
A comfortable night except for his old enemy, abe protested. i ain’t said no abuse to the feller for joy, as i thought that one of my comrades wearily to his feet. All right, abe, he said. is the colouring. The interesting thing is.
=====
Hullo! My penis is not only longer and wider, but with a higher level of confidence I feel like a new manster python? That s what I ask myself now.
=====
New Orgasm Enhanceer
Of mighty arms, that three maidens, all unrivalled case that no single specimen was ever seen in displeasure against that leading step of defection, you think so.
=====
Be not afraid to vary and change the life, after all all becomes to the best
=====
Chin-chin!
=====
Negroes admire with the of the size – we will surpass them!
Hullo! Now that I ve tried Dr MaxMan, pulling down my pants is no longer my biggest worry. Will she be able to handle this my monster python? That s what I ask myself now.
=====
Chineses suffer from quantity, we enjoy quality
Ciao!
=====
New Orgasm Enhanccer
And, marking time with her flat foot, she chanted poison.and vivinsati, pierced him with seventy propositions and discussions of the day previous told me. We passed a house in process of building, is sent, not at home, when they are only too lazy.
=====
Be not afraid to vary and change the life, after all all becomes to the best
=====
Look air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was.
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged junk email, junk mail | Leave a Comment »
March 17, 2009
Corrections (Washington Post, 11 March 2009) verbatim:
“A March 4 Metro article about changes to the tax rate in Prince William County mischaracterized a comment made by County Executive Craig S. Gerhart. Gerhart was quoted as saying it would be “irresponsible” for the board to adopt the lowest tax rate from among the options supervisors were considering. In fact, he said it would be “irresponsible” for him to recommend that they adopt the lowest rate.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged press corrections, Prince William County, Washington Post | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2009
How many different personality types are there? A friend of mine, then recently returned from England, remarked “There are five kinds of Englishman. When you’ve met all five, there’s nothing else to know about them.” He was, almost, serious.
And then we have birth-signs, and Chinese restaurant-menu-‘year of the’-types, and the Myers-Briggs scale, four variables of two values each, revealing in their combinations, i-Ching-like, some inner truth.
And now, scientists have correlated personality types with physiological activity. According to New Scientist, issue of 14 February 2009, page 43, there are four basic personality types, with their assorted mixtures. Now we know what’s what, because science has spoken:
“Explorer – elevated activity in the dopamine and noradrenalin systems. Tend to be risk-taking, novelty-seeking and impulsive, high energy and sex drive. Optimistic, enthusiastic, and curious.
“Builder – elevated activity in the serotonin system. Tend to be sociable but conventional, cautious and meticulous. Often have high social status.
“Director – elevated activity in the testosterone system. Tend to be systematic, dominant, and tough-minded. Intellectual and able to focus attention. Often have poor social skills.
“Negotiator – elevated activity in the oestrogen and oxytocin systems. Tend to be imaginative, empathic, and egalitarian with good social skills. Articulate and able to see the big picture.”
The tip-off here is that, whichever type you are, you are really quite worthy, even interesting, perhaps exciting. Even dull and plodding Builders are redeemed, in their case by ‘high social status’.
– Please leave my serotonin alone, and just hand me that fortune cookie over there, would you?
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged personality types | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2009
Here’s a letter I sent to a well-known classical music radio station in the Washington, D.C. region, in response to their most recent appeal for money:
“I hope you will consider the following criticisms seriously; I am sure that other ex-Leadership Circle members feel as I do.
“About two years ago, when you switched to all-classical format, I donated a thousand dollars to [station name]. As a retired person, that’s not a trivial amount for me to give. I expected two things: Excellent classical music programming, and the chance to meet other Leadership members at various events.
“For the next few months, I listened to WETA-FM 3-4 hours a day, and found the programming, frankly, dull, ‘relaxing’: Pieces we’ve all heard very many times before; and almost entirely limited to ‘safe’ selections from ‘safe’ composers from the Classical and Romantic periods, occasionally Baroque. During those months I never heard any Penderecki, or Pettersson, or Diamond, or Holmboe, or even Rubbra (who is tuneful enough, even if the others may not always be). — Or even more-adventurous works of standard composers, such as the choral works of Beethoven or Bruckner. So for the past year I’ve been listening to the RadioIO Classical channel on the internet. That’s my concept of what [station name] should have been.
“And as for events: during that year I received a total of one invitation to a special Leadership event (Ken Burns), but to attend that one, [station name] wanted an additional $500!
“So, no thank you.”
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged classical music, Internet radio, Leadership Circle, radio, RadioIO, WETA-FM | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2009
Thinking of the case of Bishop Richard Williamson, and others: Why is there Holocaust denial?
Columnist Richard Cohen (Washington Post, 10 February 2009, page A17) holds that deniers claim that the Holocaust is “a yarn, a myth concocted by those diabolically clever Jews to win sympathy, reparations and, of course, Israel itself.”
But that seems an unlikely motive. If the deniers are truly anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic, or if they think Hitler acted rightly, these deniers should affirm the Holocaust, praise it, even exaggerate the number of deaths.
The Holocaust certainly did occur, pretty much as commonly believed. And the deniers, I am sure, know that. Denial therefore isn’t really a claim of historical fact, but a statement of ideology, a refusal to “let Nazis be Nazis.” But the form of their denial seems to me both irrational and, as a strategy, self-defeating.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged Hitler, Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Holocaust deniers, Nazis | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2009
Revenge is the purest of motives. Victims will say “Oh, no, not at all! We don’t want revenge, Heaven forbid!; only justice.” But they deceive themselves, and do not, in any case, have standing to demand justice. Revenge is the individual’s motive; justice is society’s motive. Let us not confuse the two. **
Revenge is entirely innocent: it cares not for wealth, or health, or the high esteem of one’s neighbors. Often, it cares not for personal survival, so long as its object is gained.
Revenge suffereth not; Revenge never faileth.
_____
** Marc Fisher (Washington Post, 8 March 20009, page C01 continuation) puts this point nicely: “ I’ve always thought the system errs when it takes into account the views and passions of victims’ families; for all the tragedy they’ve suffered, they are naturally driven by exactly the kinds of emotion that the justice system should seek to put aside in calculating fair and proper punishment for criminals.”
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged revenge | Leave a Comment »
February 25, 2009
(1) “No one is saying that …”, a locution beloved of pundits and politicians. [means]
“You might say that, but if so I can safely ignore you, because you don’t count.”
(2) “No one believes that …”: similar to above.
(3) “That’s a given” [means] “I’m not going to bother giving you reasons for what I just said.”
(4) “You know,” [means] “I don’t need to ask you what you know, because I’m telling you what you know.”
(5) “Remember …” is ambiguous. “Remember” [can mean] “You are now functioning as my offline memory device,” or, in the sense of “recall”, “Remember” [means] “I know you didn’t know that, but I’ll just pretend you did!”
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged cliches, what they really mean | Leave a Comment »
February 25, 2009
[Excerpts from the week's sexually oriented junk email. This stuff is slightly less literate than the emails that offer me a few million dollars for pretending to be next of kin to some dead government minister, but it is more direct and -- to the point.]
=====
Is yours Below 5 Innches Long? Cheerio!
=====
We Guuaranteees Bigger Pen-nis [is this from Gollum?]
Howdy!
Would you like to see your penis grow inch by inch month by month?
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Do you very want to be engaged in love, but does not can? Purchase itself magic pills!
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The in cre ase of the s iz es of the s ex ual m em be r probably is a conclusive fact.
Be convinced of it!
=====
The si wx zes and form p mr en tw is, though are defined even at birth of the man, can be subjected changes. The bo kg d gfh y the man can stop the further growth per thirty years, but the growth of the m xz em qi ber does not stop! From scientific researches we know, that p wwg en sr is at the man grows and to its most death develops.
=====
Your m umn em mjx ber will inc hly re mp ase on 5-7 cen tu time xd ters in le zuf ng iyy th!
Your me yac m uhg be xf r on some centimeters becomes thicker!
Your sexual m vpc em vlk be sl r will lose confusing curvature and it becomes ideal by a st cwg raight line!
And now make a real step to this – b sno uy our me acs ans for incr hy ease of the m fdg em yl be tzy r.
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Betwene everie flancker, and of what breadth and ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. [not sure if this is about sex, but it was time for a break]
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Do the favourite woman of happy! Purchase itself medicine!
=====
Know her from the sexual side how is she inside exactly
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Realize all of her dreams with our help for short time
Have you ever heard this, “Damn it! Your p en is is really tiny!”?
Didn’t you feel stupid?
Don’t let ladies prefer dildo to you!
=====
Double Your Penis Size
=====
Don’t you look upon your diminutive willy as worth worrying about?
=====
Men always would like, that at them all was more, than at others.
And now make a real step to this – buy our means for increase of the member.
If the man speaks you, that to him all the same with what at him the size of the member – he dissembles.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged junk mail | Leave a Comment »
February 6, 2009
516,000 “Bath Bombs”, a product made in China and sold by Target and other retailers, have been recalled by the U.S. distributor. “Pressure in the jars of Bath Bombs … can cause the caps on the jars to blow off, posing explosion and projectile hazards.”
(Washington Post, 30 January 2009, page D-1)
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged product recalls | Leave a Comment »
February 6, 2009
I typed-off a David Foster Wallace story a few days ago. It was only 708 words, but typing it gave me a feel (literally – in the fingers) for what he is doing, how well he does it. Reading is good, but not the same, because it’s mostly passive. If you force yourself to write the words he wrote, in the same order, with the same rhythms, you experience the story as a writer. When your fingers stumble, that’s a sign he’s doing something you haven’t learned to do yet — structure, wording, tense, dialog. There’s an awful lot that David Foster Wallace does that we writers haven’t learned to do.
(“Only the copied text commands the soul of him who is occupied by it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text …” –Walter Benjamin)
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged David Foster Wallace, Walter Benjamin | Leave a Comment »
February 6, 2009
My contribution to a discussion about thesauri in the About.com Guide to Fiction Writing:
“I use, very frequently, the edition of Roget’s published in 1965 by St. Martin’s Press — a wonderful reference book, although time-consuming and clumsy to use. I think that publishers of alphabetical thesauri just don’t understand the thesaurus concept, or how one can best be used. I would be pathetically grateful if someone would publish Roget’s in a PC-loadable/searchable format. I have yet to find even a barely adequate thesaurus on disk or on the Web. This includes thesaurus.com, the thesaurus on the American Heritage Dictionary disk, and the thesaurus function of Merriam-Webster on line. With so much marginally useful stuff on the Web, I would hope that someone could put Roget’s there.”
[Gutenberg.org has a Roget's, but it's from 1911 and without hypertexting or other user tools]
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged Thesauri, Thesaurus | Leave a Comment »
February 6, 2009
New Scientist, 24 Jan 09, interview with James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory:
“I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2˚C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4˚C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. … [T]he cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. …” [Q: It’s a depressing outlook.] “Not necessarily. I don’t think 9 billion is better than 1 billion.”
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged overpopulation, population, population bomb | Leave a Comment »
February 6, 2009
“In 2004, [Steve] Jobs received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and had surgery, which apparently was successful. He did not disclose the illness until a speech at Stanford University in 2005. “No one wants to die,” he said. “Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.” (Washington Post, 15 Jan. 2009, page A-1 continuation)
Death is the one big thing we know that other Earthly beings don’t. What is the one big thing we don’t know?
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged death, Steve Jobs | Leave a Comment »
January 24, 2009
“How the Foot Came to Be”. A faux-folk tale about shoes, and feet, and a very clever woman. in: Abacot Journal. http://abacotjournal.wordpress.com/archived-issues/current-issue-3/how-the-foot-came-to-be/
“The Dragon’s Will”. A robot programmed to help autistic children helps both them and himself. Anthologized in: Bewildering Stories. http://forum.bewilderingstories.com/anthologies/AR08_antho3.html
“Simon Says”. A man trapped in a mysterious prison suddenly finds a way out. in: Labyrinth Inhabitant. www.labyrinthinhabitant.com/simonsays.html
“The Different Mosses”. There is a high wall in the back of her yard. Her mother and father won’t talk about it in front of her or her brother. Available in print and audio in: qarrtsiluni. http://qarrtsiluni.com/2008/12/31/the-different-mosses
“Thirteen Channels” [published under the name 'Karl Krausbart']. Thirteen paragraphs in which uncomfortable things happen to the same people, in different ways. in: Slow Trains. www.slowtrains.com/issue2/krausbartissue2.html
“Clickers”, a one-act play for four characters. Election night: a dark horse candidate is winning a U.S. Senate race. Then the forces that put him in office exact their price. in: Oregon Literary Review. http://orelitrev.startlogic.com/v3n1/OLR-kuch.htm; vol 3 no 1, Winter/Spring 2008
Previous fiction and poetry published in Timber Creek Review, North American Review, Dust, New York magazine, Commonweal, etc.
Posted in Fiction | Tagged drama, Plays, Short Stories | Leave a Comment »
January 16, 2009
Verbatim from the Washington Post, Fairfax supplement, 15 January 2009:
The following incidents were reported by the Falls Church [Virginia] Police Department. For information, call 703-248-5056.
….
ASSAULTS
SPRING ST. N. AND PARK AVE., 1:32 p.m. Dec. 24. A person in a vehicle threw a cheeseburger at a person in another vehicle.
<END>
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Big Mac Attack, cheeseburger, cheeseburger assault, Falls Church | Leave a Comment »
January 16, 2009
The Web site www.britishinformation.com/drama-play/ has an obsolete email address for me, re availability of this play for groups wishing to produce it. The current email address is terencekuch (at) ymail.com. The play may be licensed free of charge, subject only to the proviso that I be identified as the author.
Here’s what britishinformation.com has posted about this play:
The Play of Anne : a drama of the Restoration
By Terence Kuch
Summary
This vibrant play, based on historical characters and events, brings vividly to life the struggles of the early English Reformation under Henry VIII, where a wavering king, passionate Calvinists, and adherents of the Pope vie not only for supremacy in the church, but for the success or fall of the Tudor line, and life or death for themselves. The heroine is Anne Askew, “a poor knight’s daughter”, accused of not believing in the miracle of the Mass, and put on trial for her life by the Church. But the secular forces are also interested in Anne, not for her heresy (which they care nothing about) but because she may incriminate the Queen, their enemy. In the midst of the trial King Henry himself unexpectedly appears, ready and eager to interrogate Anne personally (as he did, historically, in several heresy trials). The outcome turns on Anne’s determination to defend her conscience against both Church and State, and against the extreme Protestants who see her as a tool in their own power struggle.
Background
It has been twelve years since Henry VIII broke finally with Rome. At that time, Henry’s vicegerent, Thomas Cromwell, established limited tolerance for Protestantism, and its influence grew. But now Cromwell is dead, and Henry sees the growing Protestant movement as a threat to his crown. Schismatic he may be, but Henry is determined not also to be a heretic, and has taken a hard line with the Protestants, including burning them at the stake. But unknown to Henry, the Protestant cause is favored by some within his own household — even those closest to him.
Staging
15 parts requiring a minimum of eight actors, of whom two must be female and at least two must be male. Most of the play is set in a church chancel, where Anne’s trial takes place; most churches will need few props. The actors may be dressed quite simply, or elaborate costumes of the time may be prepared.
A word of advice: This play is not for children, owing to its portrayal of violence, intemperate language, sexism, and moral confusion, all four quite typical of the Reformation era — as of our own.
Availability
An examination copy of “The Play of Anne” will be emailed (PDF format) on request.
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged Anne Askew, British Information, britishinformation.com, drama, English Reformation, Henry VIII, Play of Anne, Reformation, The Play of Anne, www.britishinformation.com | Leave a Comment »
January 14, 2009
Solution: Married women should retain their maiden names. Girl babies should be given the surnames of their mothers; boy babies, of their fathers.
Problem: Men (males) have family histories. “The Puddleducks have lived in Wessex since 1558” and so on. Women don’t have family histories; they’re part of men’s histories. When we say “The Puddleducks have lived in Wessex since 1558”, we mean the male line. The female line is ignored, submerged. Why? Less worthy? It would seem so. One way to get over this problem is <see “Solution”, above.>
Rather ludicrously, current practice favors the piling-up of surnames, with or without hyphens. “You’re invited to a party at the Smith-Joneses”, etc. This is unnecessary, confusing (especially to computers and HR departments), and comes off as stuffy and pretentious. Besides, what happens in the next generation? Better if a married woman would just keep her maiden name. We know that was her father’s name, not her mother’s; but we have to start somewhere.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged American last names, American surnames, Family histories, Naming the baby, surnames, What to name the baby, women's last names, women's surnames | Leave a Comment »
January 14, 2009
Long ago, we thought that all the stars were the same distance from us. Sometimes, a pattern of stars would remind a viewer of the mighty hunter Orion, or a scorpion, or twins. These patterns were thought to be physical features of the heavens. There were disputes over what, if anything, a particular pattern might represent, but not over whether or not there was a pattern. The stars were, after all, just there, a two-dimensional form.
So we called these patterns ‘constellations’, meaning ‘stars together’ **. But the stars aren’t together; that they seem so is an illusion: the heavens are three-dimensional. Even from a few light-years away, most of the patterns we see would disappear.
It is, of course, pleasant to study the ancient Greeks, their exploits and their gods. And we can still look for constellations in the sky with good conscience, knowing them for the fables they are. But constellations are not real, and have no place in an astronomy that’s based on science, not superstition. Let’s reserve talk of ‘constellations’ for studies of cultures, not studies of things.
** Latin ‘con’ originally ‘com’, meaning ‘together’ — see OED.
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged against constellations, astronomy, constellations | Leave a Comment »
January 14, 2009
“We do not counter [a] theory with another theory, but with experience.” — William Large, Heidegger’s Being and Time, p.30 (University of Indiana Press, 2008).
But, on what basis do we assert that a (particular) experience is evidence for or against a (particular) theory? By means of another theory? Or another experience? Either way, we have an infinite regress. Bare assertion is out of favor (except in theology; see Karl Barth, Gesammelte Schriften), but it seems the only way to break out of this conundrum.
Large continues, interestingly: “Yet here we encounter another problem, possibly the most difficult of all. How can we account for or describe this experience when the only language in which we can talk about the world is categorical? If we are going to capture the existential as existential, then we cannot use the propositional language of predicates, attributes, concepts, and categories. But it is precisely this language which we take to be the only true one.”
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged Martin Heidegger, theories | Leave a Comment »
January 12, 2009
A thought-experiment:
1. Empty your mind of everything you’ve ever heard or believed about Christianity. Pretend, for the sake of this experiment, that there is no Church, no Christian religion, and that you have never heard of Jesus of Nazareth.
2. Read the Gospel of Mark in some reputable and literal (or almost literal) translation, such as the Revised Standard Version of 1946 (or as revised in 1990), or Richmond Lattimore’s, or (especially) Reynolds Price’s. Read it front to back, in one sitting; this can easily be done in one evening.
3. Assume, for the sake of this experiment, that every matter of fact reported in Mark’s Gospel is literally true.
4. Now: Based on this reading, what do you think of the character of God? What are his apparent motives? What do you think of his relationship to Jesus? Your answers may surprise you.
———
* Notes:
Why Mark, and not the other Gospels? Because Mark was written first, and has a freshness of encounter the others lack. (Scholars agree that Mark was written before Matthew; and even if they didn’t, in reading the two together it just becomes obvious that Matthew was retelling and elaborating Mark’s work, especially with respect to fulfilling O.T. prophecies.)
Translations: the translators of the RSV had tin ears, so bear with it if you read that translation. The Lattimore and the Price are better, but not easy to find in libraries or bookshops. The King James (1611) and ASV (1901) ** versions are my favorites for reading, but both suffer from the unavailability of XXth Century scholarship.
** The ASV is identical, except for a few matters of spelling and punctuation, with the [English] Revised Version of 1881.
<END>
Posted in God | Tagged Bible, character of God, Gospel of Mark, Mark's Gospel | Leave a Comment »
January 12, 2009
“He trusted on the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.” Psalm XX:8 (KJV, 1611)
Who’s who, here? I’ve been told that the Hebrew for this verse is just as ambiguous as the English. And use of gender-insensitive language won’t help us: all the ‘he’s and ‘him’s here are male including, as a point of courtesy, God.
(Note two alternative readings for Psalm XX:8:
“… if he will have him.” – 1928 Prayer Book
“… if he delight in him.” – Handel’s Messiah)
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged ambiguity, gender-insensitive language, Hebrew language | Leave a Comment »
January 12, 2009
We write “maybe” — but try breaking this jammed-together word in two: “may be”; doesn’t the meaning “it may be that …” come through more clearly and vividly? Try “any way” instead of “anyway”; or, more daringly, “all most” instead of “almost”, showing the tension, the indecision, between “all” and “most”.
David Foster Wallace, in his story “Everything is Green” has an interesting approach. The story, about a man and a woman, is told from the man’s POV, in indirect discourse. When the woman speaks, she says “everything”; but when he speaks, it is ‘”every thing”. And “can not”; and “her self”. This difference is one of the ways Wallace shows us how different the two characters are, how fragile their crumbling relationship is.
(Sometimes, compounds break up without our help. In the original KJV Bible, for instance, “shalbe” is used for the later “shall be”.)
<END>
Posted in Fiction, Language | Tagged compound words, David Foster Wallace, un-compounding a word | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2009
A web site recently included the following discussion. “A” and “B” are real people, not quoted by name because I don’t have permission to do so. “TK” is myself.
A: I’ve recently completed [a story], currently under consideration with several literary magazines.
B: Are these paying markets you’re sending it to? Because I pay $50. I know. Not much. … And if you are sending it to non-paying markets, you might as well use it as toilet paper. Thus ends the sermon.
A: I believe most of them pay. But here’s a question, and I’m not being didactic or defensive. I’m just curious, …. If one of those reputable, prestigious publications that agents, editors, and writers hold in high regard offered to buy your story for two author copies, would you object to the idea? What if a literary review offered you a similar deal — not necessarily one of the top magazines, just a regular quarterly out of some decent university?
B: Which agents, editors and writers hold these literary reviews in high regard? Can you name one non-paying market that actually is held in high regard by agents and editors? Because the highly regarded literary markets and magazines that I can name offhand (Glimmer Train, Story, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc.) DO pay real money. But yes, even in the improbable case that a non-paying literary review would impress anyone but MFA programs looking for professors, I would still object strongly to throwing my work away. The only way I could see giving a story to one of these numbskull markets would be if I was GUARANTEED an agent or a publishing contract because of it. I’ve been making money at writing people’s Law School Statements. And essays for classes. I find that infinitely more respectable than getting published in a non-paying market.
TK: Payment in real money is one of the criteria I use when picking a market to submit to. That said, if I were really interested in making more $$$ per hour, I’d just stop writing short stories and go to work at McDonald’s. Viewed that way, getting paid for writing just doesn’t seem very important.
<END>
Posted in Fiction | Tagged Payment for Writing, Payments to Writers, Short Story Markets | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2009
goes to the following. Not content with the usual BS, this one, supposedly from the FBI Director, also inculpates the World Bank.
RE: BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI)
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 4:08 AM
From: fbi_investigation@fbi.gov
Anti Terrorist & Monitory Crime Division
Attention: fund beneficiary,
This is an official advice from the FBI Foreign Remittance Telegraphic Dept. It has come to our notice that the HSBC Bank Liverpool district district, has released 49,500,000.00 U.S. dollars into your account here in the United States of America, by ATM means. The Central Bank of Nigeria knowing fully well that they do not have enough facilities to effect this payment from United Kingdom to your account, used what is known as a secret diplomatic transit payment S.T.D.P. to pay this fund through ATM ,they used this means to complete the payment, and instead of paying 49.5 million, they paid $8,300,000.00.
They are still, waiting for confirmation from you on the already transferred funds which was converted to ATM so that they can do final crediting to your account. Secret diplomatic payments are not made unless the funds are related to terrorist activities why must your payment be made in secret transfer, if your transaction is legitimate, if you are not a terrorist, then why did you not receive the money directly into your account; this is a pure coded, means of payment? Records which we have had with this method of payment in the past has always been related to terrorist acts, we do not want you to get into trouble as soon as these funds reflect in your account in the U.S.A., so it is our duty as a word wide commission to correct this little problem before this fund is delivered.
Due to the increased difficulty and unnecessary scrutiny by the American authorities when funds come from outside of Europe, and the Middle East, the F.B.I Bank Comission for Europe has stopped the transfer on its way to deliver payment of $8,300, 000.00 to debit your reserve account and pay you through a secured diplomatic transit account (S.D.T.A.). We govern and oversee funds transfer for the World Bank and the rest of the world.
We advice you contact us immediately, as the funds have been stopped and are being held in our office here , until you can be able to provide us, (with the encoded F.B.I. order for transfer),we advice you present us with a diplomatic immunity seal of transfer within 3 days from the bank where the funds were transferred from for us to certify that the funds that you are about to receive from Nigeria are antiterrorist / drug free or we shall have cause to cross and impound the name we have on the fund as the rightful beneficiary is your name that is why we have decided to contact you directly to acquire the proper verifications and proof from you to show that you are the rightful person to receive this fund, because the above mentioned amount is a big amount of money, that is why we want to make sure is a clear and legal money you are about to receive. Be informed that the fund have hit your account, but right now we have ask the bank not to release the fund to anybody that comes to them , unless so to this regards you are to reassure and prove to us that what you are about to receive is a clean money by sending to us FBI identification record and also certificate of ownership to satisfy to us that the money your about to receive is real money. You are to forward the documents to us immediately if you have it with in your possession, if you don’t have it let us know so that we will direct and inform you where to obtain the document and send to us so that we will ask the bank holding the funds the Bank of America to go ahead crediting your account immediately. This documents are to be issued to you from the place where the fund was transfer from, so get back to us immediately if you don’t have the document so that we will inform you the particular place and what it will takes to obtain it in Federal Republic of Nigeria, because we have come to realize that the fund is transferred from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Guarantee: funds will be released on confirmation of the document: documented proof of ownership.
Final instruction: 60f credit payment instruction: irrevocable credit guarantee
61e beneficiary has full power when validation is cleared
62 beneficiaries bank in U.S.A., can only release funds upon confirmation from the World Bank / United Nations.
64 bearers must clear bank protocol and validation request.
Note: we have asked for the above documents to make available the most complete and up-to date records possible for the enhancement of public safety, welfare and security of society while recognizing the importance of individual privacy rights. If you fail to provide the documents to us, we will charge you with the FBI and take our proper action against you for not proofing to us the legitimate of the fund you are about to receive.
The United States Department of Justice order 556-73 establishes rules and regulations for the subject of an FBI identification record to obtain a copy of his or her own record for review.
Regards
Robert S Mueller
Director FBI Washington
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged FBI, Frauds, junk email, Nigerian Scam, Robert S. Mueller | Leave a Comment »
January 6, 2009
Case A: Israelis in Palestine: According to Richard Cohen (Washington Post, 6 January 2009, page A13), quoting a CIA publication, there are about 187,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, 20,000 in the Golan Heights, and 175,000 in East Jerusalem.
Case B: There are thousands of Turks in Germany.
Case C: There are thousands of Algerians in France.
Case D: There are thousands of Mexicans in the United States.
Case E: There are thousands of Kurds in Iran.
An exercise for the reader: What is the most important difference between Case A and Cases B through E?
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged Citizenship, Immigration, Israel, Palestine | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2008
Junk mail recently received (complete text):
Night of Pleeasure
Are you ready for Chrristmas night? Click here.)
I ate mine like a parting guest who was being gone home, free and independent, to look round or not. You must say it, said sir henry. Whatever barney with a grin. But come, it won’t pay to the charles nand campanule household is getting.
[END]
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged junk mail | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2008
If ‘I’m sorry’ is anything other than a semantic blank, it’s formalized regret at having done something, and resolve, at least for the moment, not to repeat what one is now sorry for. But consider the following abuses:
1) The following (from Mike Huckaby in the New Yorker, 1 December 2008, page 30) isn’t about mixed metaphors, although it could be; it’s about abuse of ‘sorry’:
[re Hillary Clinton’s potential appointment as Secretary of State] “It’s one of those things that if he’s floating the balloon it better fly. It would be twice having rung the doorbell and not taken her to the dance. You know, I’m sorry, but at some point you better get in the car with her and take her.”
2) And from a website, verbatim: “If your purchased product was damaged during shipping we will replace it. Our only restriction is were sorry we cannot refund shipping cost. We personaly know your going to love your new camera. Thank you, Pamela”
Pamela isn’t as fluent as Mike, or perhaps she just can’t type; but neither Mike nor Pamela is sorry in any real sense; in their mouths, it isn’t even a performative, ** it’s just a kind of tic.
** In a performative, saying it does it, as in “I dub thee Knight of the Round Table.”
END
Posted in Language | Tagged Sorry | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2008
The complete text of a recent piece of junk mail:
America believes in you and in your red stick.
Download drugs from your chair. It’s very convenient.
http://www.branchtradition.com
[that URL is a ‘not found’.]
[END]
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged junk mail | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2008
The complete text of a piece of junk mail received recently:
Its workks!
Penis Ennlarge Patch WORKS!
With him. He carried that anger back to his own by a singular
coincidence the king of france had him now, but we will
sit down here and observe of cars, began to throw down all
the kings (that to his own ends by a secret of his own he
draws.
[END]
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged junk mail | Leave a Comment »
December 17, 2008
Little Thoughts to Live By:
.. No one respects a victim.
.. Revenge is the only pure motive.
.. “In the short run, nothing changes; in the long run, everything changes.” — Fred Brooks (?)
.. “It is possible for things to get worse without limit.” — Herb (Dr Herbert R.J.) Grosch, NBS
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged Add new tag, quotations, Thoughts to Live By | Leave a Comment »
November 19, 2008
In brief:
Among other ways of reading and listening, the literal sense is always available, as is the ironic sense. “What the writer intended” is relevant, but not conclusive. Interpretation is the reader’s to determine, not the writer’s.
At length:
Several centuries ago, scholars studying the Bible realized that reading it literally wasn’t sufficient to explicate its entire meaning. While (at that time, anyway) not questioning its literal truth, they also developed supple, and subtle, methods of interpretation beyond the literal. Sometimes the text itself suggested additional meanings, most obviously in the Parables; at others, the scholars went beyond what the writers of the Bible may have intended, but felt these extended meanings to be faithful to the spirit of the book. A famous example of the latter is referring to Jesus as “the second Adam”.
Northrop Frye (see especially Anatomy of Criticism) and other critics have identified these ways to read a text, often called “levels of interpretation”:
Allegorical
Anagogical
Analogical
Formal
Literal/historical
Literal/descriptive
Metaphorical
Moral [‘tropological’]
Mythical
Prophetic
Symbolic
Typical (= of types)
The literal sense is always available to the reader, but may not be the richest or most informative. But what’s missing here? The list doesn’t include Ironic. Now, it’s conventional to view irony as inhering in the author’s intention, not in the reader’s interpretation. But, in the postmodern view that the writer cannot be privileged — he’s just another reader, and is granted no special wisdom — we must view irony as another of the “ways of understanding”.
So how does irony function in this role? At its simplest, it’s exactly the opposite of literal:
Literal: You’re likable enough, Hillary.
Ironic: You’re not likable enough, Hillary.
[Political sidebar: Who says you need to be likable to be President? SEE: Johnson, Lyndon; Nixon, Richard.]
Further reading: See Wikipedia articles on Irony; Hermeneutics; Northrop Frye.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged interpretation, ironic reading, irony, literal reading, understanding | Leave a Comment »
November 19, 2008
Examples:
“This sucker’s goin’ down!” (quoted in NY Times) – George Bush, about the financial system, as the crisis hit.
“Get over it!” – Marion Barry, quondam mayor of D.C., upon catching flak for an unpopular decision.
“Bitch set me up!” – same, upon later being nabbed in a drug sting.
The moral: Some public figures known for verbose nonsense can, in a crisis, actually speak a vigorous and vivid kind of English.
Posted in Language | Tagged George Bush, Marion Barry, vivid language | Leave a Comment »
November 19, 2008
a even
we live and how we make those places as ours. It is about many
CAeNADoAN PnmHARMAmCY
VvAcG_RA
C1wALoS
S0OMA
LE9VzTRA
FwEMALEs Vv8A1G7R4A
UsLTaRAM
More for less
available to anyone with a television, VCR, six-pack and a couple
[END]
Posted in Poems | Tagged found poems | Leave a Comment »
November 19, 2008
The following appeared in my inbox today, and probably in several million others as well:
Welcome to Western Union
Send Money Worldwide
Address; St, Peter & PaulRoad Cotonou Benin Rep.
Attention Beneficiary ,
The Board of Federal Ministry of Finance Benin Republic are hereby to notify you of your payment inherited funds after the meeting held on 18th of July 2008. His Excellence the PRESIDENT OF FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF BENIN has Instructed this Department to send your funds through western union money transfer for easy receiveing of your inherinted funds without any further delay to avoid paying money to the fraud stars that is going on through Courier Company and fake bank in africa. Because we know that some bank and Courier Company have fall you in nigeria and other part of Africa. but is not going to happen again as long as you are going follow up the instruction.
[It goes on to the expected conclusion.]
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Benin, junk email, junkmail | Leave a Comment »
November 19, 2008
#1: Whatever occurs is typical.
#2: Intention is what happens.
#3: Speech belongs to the listener — interpretation is everything.
#4: It is easier to ride the horse in the direction it is going. [q. from Werner Erhard]
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged assumptions, simplifications | Leave a Comment »
November 13, 2008
In Slavoj Zizek’s new book, Violence, he refers to a character in Shyamalan’s The Village as “the village idiot”. It takes a great deal of courage these days to use a word like ‘idiot’ in its now-literal sense **. Indeed, the plain sense has been almost entirely eclipsed by a variety of figurative senses — leaving no actual idiots left on the planet. Would that it were so!
** Not the same as the original Greek, which meant someone not involved in public life.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged idiot, idiots, Slavoj Zizek | Leave a Comment »
November 13, 2008
The following appeared in two consecutive junk mail pieces I received yesterday. They seem to have something to do with Zola; or perhaps not.
============================
world criisis
Behind him and the door. So long as he did not at the background of grimy warehouses and leaden whispered words came so softly that they were by my side. (they are sitting thus when the hatch and a wretched and insane expedition is this.
worlld crisis
With its whitewashed stone houses huddled close written on the astrolabe, and they all agree that looking round for the man who had a cinch up on and the fortune of the rougons so you potter his state would not remain in this confederacy.
END
Posted in Poems | Tagged found poem | Leave a Comment »
November 13, 2008
Meat should be cut at the joint, Plato said, not merely hacked apart any old place. Likewise, words, if they must be divided, should be cut at their own joints. The pieces (before and after line-breaks) should bear as much meaning as possible, as an aid to the reader.
In violation of this principle, the Washington Post, last year, divided “homerun” as ho/merun. Exactly what’s wrong here? There is home plate, and runners run there. But baseball does not have a “ho”-anything, nor does anyone “merun”. (In a way, the Post brought this problem on themselves by ramming “home” and “run” together, instead of leaving them as two separate words, but that’s a different topic; see post #61.)
The Post also insists on dividing “England” as En/gland, as if England were not a land, but some kind of gland, ductless perhaps, or duke-less as Labour would like to see it.
The New Yorker, which generally has the most astute editing of any American magazine, recently published a long article about psychopaths, with these word divisions:
psycho/path
psycho/pathology
psychop/athy
The first two are fine: “psych” (psyche) = mind or soul, and “path”, referring to the passions (stuff that happens to us), is a Greek root taken over into Latin. (The “o” could fall on either side of the word division.)
But what is a “psychop”? And what is “athy”? Nothing. And Nothing.
<END>
Posted in Language | Tagged dividing words, hyphenation, line-breaks, word division | Leave a Comment »
November 7, 2008
“Sea change” was original with Shakespeare. But now, every newspaper in the country, and most of the talking heads on TV, use/abuse this weary cliche. Let’s leave this one with Shakespeare; may it be interred with his bones.
I had a dream, or I have a dream? King’s rhetoric played with this ambiguity, brilliantly. But now everybody seems to ‘have a dream’. In retrospect, this cheapens King’s brilliance. ‘Dream’, unless used literally, is another cliche that obstructs clear thought and should be banished from our writing.
<END>
Posted in Fiction, Language | Tagged cliches, I have a dream, sea change | Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2008
“Am I going to answer the question I just asked, before you get a chance to? — Yes.”
“Do politicians do that all the time? — For sure. And others, too.”
“Doesn’t that just bug you? –I’ll bet it does!”
END
Posted in Language | Tagged Add new tag, answering questions, dialog, dialogue | Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2008
“You have heard it said, “Off with his head!” — but we could instead say “Off with his body!” — it’s a question of what remains essentially ‘us’ if we’re forced to part with some of our parts. And consider the cliché “Lost his head” — the opposite point of view.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged cliches, head and body | Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2008
Lots of things are superficial. At times, it seems that everything that isn’t too deep to understand is too stupid to matter.
But there are degrees. To pick one typical example, not to pick on him except as an example, consider the music of Morton Gould: glib, superficial, utterly trivial. The work of someone quite bright, for whom composing came all too readily, who had an easy success.
This is quite different from music that’s serious, intensely conceived, just not of the highest quality. Considering only the ‘G’s, we have Gebel, Gernsheim, Goetz, ….
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged superficiality | Leave a Comment »
October 26, 2008
“Life adapts, continues, and flourishes; it is not life itself that falls, only particular versions of it. Humans are busy endangering themselves and many other species in their suicidal plunge, but life itself has all the time in the world, and it will reassert itself in new forms when it is ready.”
(A.C. Grayling in New Scientist, 6 September 08, page 54)
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged life, persistence of life, right to life | Leave a Comment »
October 5, 2008
The following discussion occurred in the summer of 2008 in an on-line writers’ workshop sponsored by one of America’s leading literary journals. Participants are identified by code, because I don’t have permission to use their names. “A” is me, and “D” is the editor of the journal and leader of the workshop.
A: I just received an impassioned email from a fellow writer who says she will never, ever, submit to a non-paying market, whether or not she could use the money (a pittance, anyway, in most cases). Her point: Non-paying markets are full of inferior material you don’t want to be associated with, don’t give you exposure, can actually give you harmful exposure, are hardly ever read, are never reviewed or considered for awards, etc. — I don’t agree with her. There are certainly inferior markets, but I don’t know what pay/non-pay has to do with it. — Comments?
B: Your friend’s comment is not coming from an informed point of view. My guess is that she’s very new to the game. The truth is, most literary journals don’t pay anything. And it’s very difficult to get into any of them. if you limited yourself to only the paying markets, you might be missing other opportunities. Getting into any mid-tier journal is a coup, in my opinion.
C: There are some good non-paying journals, but if you really get down to it, they all pay in one form or another since they pay in copies. In my experience, Weber pays over $100 for a story, but I don’t really think it’s all that much better than the Briar Cliff Review, which is a beautiful journal and well edited, just has a much smaller budget. If you’re doing ‘literary fiction’ it’s wise not to turn up your nose at non-payers as many of the markets exist on arts council grants, and NPR-like funding to keep them going. The material they publish depends more on the editor than what they pay, in my opinion. A lot of them pay “token amounts.” I’ve gotten $10 before into a Paypal account. That’s no different than getting copies.
D: I agree with [B] and [C]: Your friend is probably starting out, or really uninformed. Wish her good luck with only publishing in paying markets. And that’s my take on that: good luck.
END
Posted in Fiction | Tagged fiction markets, markets for fiction, paying fiction markets; non-paying fiction markets, writing short stories | Leave a Comment »
October 5, 2008
“Belief in an omnipotent omniscient creator of the world does not in itself have any moral implications — it’s still up to you to decide whether it is right to obey His commands. … The young men who flew airplanes into buildings in the US … were not just stupid in imagining that these were God’s commands; even thinking that there were His commands, they were evil in obeying them.” –Steven Weinberg in New York Review of Books, September 25, 2008, p.76
Weinberg’s is a curious argument. On what basis, in accordance with what ethical theory, are people ‘evil’? No, I don’t have an answer to that question; I don’t believe there is a coherent answer. Ascriptions of evil, at bottom, may be no more than gut feelings, or the teachings of power, or ‘what everybody knows’, or the wish to avoid pain or death, or based on some value system that is itself arbitrary, such as the absolutely supreme value of every human (and only human) life.
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged ethics, evil, God | Leave a Comment »
October 5, 2008
Here’s a very simple market-scoring formula that short-story writers can use:
There are four variables, each scored “A” or “B”. The highest-scoring markets would therefore score AAAA. Other useful variables, such as circulation, speed of yes/no decision, source of funding, institutional affiliation, how long established, frequency of publication, rights retained by authors, etc., are inconvenient to obtain or, in some cases, hard to believe. The four selected variables are easily pulled from Duotrope.com listings and the markets’ web sites.
The variables are not weighted against each other. Each writer may consider some variables more important than others. I find it a real nuisance, for example, to submit by USPS rather than by email attachment.
First variable: Publication medium
A = All-print, or print + electronic (e.g., monthly posting + annual print anthology)
B = Electronic only
Second variable: Submission method
A = Electronic permitted
B = Postal only
Third variable: Paying market or not
A = Pays for at least some fiction in real money.
B = Never pays writers of fiction in real money.
Fourth variable: Name
This variable has one objective, and one subjective, component.
A = The market has a ‘name’ in the business, e.g., has placed stories in Pushcart, BASS, Year’s Best SF, or other worthy reprint anthology.
A = The market has a name you would be pleased to cite in your cover letter. For me, something called “Telegraph Hill Review” would get an A, “Gore on the Floor Monthly”, a B. You may, however, have exactly the opposite valuation.
B = Neither of the above.
Some promising variables were considered but not used:
(a) (Concerning original stories, not reprints:) One-shot anthology v anthology-series v periodical magazine. It’s not clear to what extent acceptance by each medium is more, or less, favorable to a writer. The big disadvantage of the one-shot anthology is that, five years from now, no one will remember it and your writing credit will not carry much weight, compared with being published in a monthly or quarterly that’s still in business. Of course, the magazine might fold, leaving you be in the same situation. On balance, the anthology series looks like the best place to be; but you never know how long the series will last.
(b) Simultaneous submissions. Some publications forbid this practice, some say OK, some are silent. When they are silent, Duotrope marks these as “no simsubs”, while Writers Digest says “simsubs OK”. Based on discussion in a fiction workshop I attended recently, I tend to ignore prohibitions against simsubs. But if market ‘A’ accepts a piece, you should promptly withdraw it from all other markets where you’ve sent it. TIP: Withdrawals are ignored by many markets, or never quite catch up with your submission. Be sure to save a copy of your withdrawal email, just in case there’s a dispute later.
END
Posted in Fiction | Tagged Duotrope, fiction markets, markets for fiction | Leave a Comment »
October 5, 2008
Pro-choicers assert that every woman has a right to bear as many, or as few, children as she wishes. If pregnant, the abortion v giving-birth decision is hers alone, never mind the wishes of the father. I’ll agree that the father has no right to insist that a woman carry to term. And I’ll agree that every woman has a right to an abortion. But I don’t agree that a woman has the moral (never mind legal) right to have as many children as she chooses. Why should society condone irresponsible breeding? Even if a woman is wealthy, having many children imposes burdens on every generation after her, overwhelming the earth with people we really don’t need, and the sheer overwhelming numbers of whom are ruining our world. The conundrum is: who will enforce population control? The Chinese experiment has had many problems. And would we trust our own government as the Chinese trust theirs? I don’t think so.
Pro-lifers are flying under false colors. While caring deeply for every human fetus from conception onward (including severely mentally handicapped fetuses whom it is cruel and insensitive to bring into the world), they ignore any right to life other species may have — species who are also God’s children, and who are, as well, innocent of the burden of sin that human beings bear. “Pro-life” should really be called “pro-only-human-life, screw everyone else”.
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions, Language | Tagged birth control, overpopulation, pro-choice, pro-life | Leave a Comment »
October 3, 2008
It used to be believed that the universe was created on October 23, 4004 B.C.**, variously at noon, 9am, or 9pm (but 9pm was “just a theory”).
Anyone up for celebrating a true creationist holiday?
** See Wikipedia, article "Ussher Chronology"
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged 23 October, creationist holiday, holidays, October 23 | Leave a Comment »
October 3, 2008
Excerpts from Deborah Howell’s column in the Washington Post, September 28, 2008, page B6:
“More than 750 readers from around the country told me they were mightily offended [by an editorial cartoon making fun of John McCain and Sarah Palin]. Many were Pentecostals. Complaints also came from mainline Christians and from a Buddhist who said “it offends me.” McCain and Palin are certainly fair game, but most of those offended by the cartoon felt it mocked all Pentecostals.”
We need to be firm about this: no one can legitimately claim to ‘be offended’, or accused of ‘giving offense’; rather, offense is something we do to ourselves, and it’s usually harmful to do so, both to us ** and to everyone else involved. Taking offense does not solve problems: it adds to them, leaving a residue of hate and resentment.
** This is a good time to recall Spinoza’s discussion of the harmfulness of negative emotions.
END
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions, Language | Tagged giving offense, offense, offensiveness, taking offense | Leave a Comment »
October 3, 2008
from an interactive news website:
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
I know what that means, but it’s still an odd thing to say; as if my comment realizes it is immoderate and is patiently waiting to be nuanced, or watered down, or surrounded with ‘perhapses’, or ‘other things being equals’, or ‘that having been saids’.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged moderated posting, moderation | Leave a Comment »
September 21, 2008
from Merriam-Webster.com, 17 September, 2008.
“In its very earliest uses in the 16th century, “surly” meant “majestic” or “lordly” These early meanings make sense when you know that this word is an alteration of Middle English “serreli”, which probably comes from “sire, ser”, a title formerly used as a form of address for men of rank or authority. So how did a word with such lofty beginnings come to be associated with grumbling rudeness? Arrogant and domineering behavior is sometimes associated with men of rank or position, and “surly” came to mean “haughty” or “imperious”. These meanings (which are now obsolete) led to the “rude” sense that is very common today.”
Oddly enough, for “rude”, at bottom, means “coarse and rustic” or “characteristic of uneducated people” — hardly “men [sic] of rank or position” — at least some of them.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged rude, surly | Leave a Comment »
September 21, 2008
A replica-watch purveyor sent me the following spam email:
“Unbelievable Quality – We have fake Swiss Men’s and Ladie’s [sic] Replica Watches from Rolex to the Popular Panerai Watch”
OK, I don’t believe the quality; that was easy.
But the assault on our language goes deeper: What level of quality am I supposed to unbelieve? Too often, “quality” is used to mean “high quality”, ignoring the possibility of middling or low quality — in the replica-watch industry, very good possibilities, indeed. In a country where all the children are gifted and talented, all the watches must be “quality”.
Regarding fake watches, it is legal to bring one (and only one, at least at a time) into the USA — see Customs regulations. The cases of replicas are often well made; one reason they’re cheap is that they often use Chinese-made movements. The Chinese make some excellent watch movements (“quality”), but also some that possess the attribute of quality in a very different way. Which would they send you?
END
Posted in Language | Tagged quality, replica watches, unbelievable quality | Leave a Comment »
September 14, 2008
Telepathy is like owning a radio in a country where nobody is broadcasting.
(“Communication from one mind to another other than through the channels of sense.” — M-W)
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September 11, 2008
The following plot is based on events in Pennsylvania surrounding the murder of a woman named Dana Gates, as reported in local newspapers in 2001 and 2002. There was, of course, considerable speculation about the case — and there still is.
1. A woman, ‘A’, is found naked and dead in her front yard. Her fiancé, ‘B’ is found inside the house, severely wounded. Police conclude that ‘B’ ’s injuries could not have been self-inflicted.
2. Police suspicion focuses on a man, ‘C’, who had been annoying ‘A’. Evidence of his presence is found inside ‘A’ ’s home. ‘C’ is arrested.
3. Popular suspicion, however, focuses on a notorious ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ couple, who were seen socializing with ‘A’ and ‘B’ shortly before their deaths. (Both are later convicted of a different murder, in another state, and are given long prison terms.)
4. ‘B’ cannot remember what happened the night of ‘A’ ’s death. ‘C’ admits he was inside ‘A’ ’s home, but denies his guilt in her death. He is released for lack of evidence.
Fictional hypothesis: The murderer knows that ‘B’ might regain his memory of the fatal night at any time. Afraid that if he kills ‘B’ he may be caught, and hoping that ‘B’ will never remember what happened, he takes a job near ‘B’ ’s home. He befriends ‘B’ — and observes. Meanwhile, ‘C’, concerned that if any harm comes to ‘B’ he will automatically be the prime suspect, also keeps an eye out on ‘B’, to protect him. There is an attempt on ‘B’ ’s life, which fails. ‘C’, under suspicion, realizes that ‘A’ ‘s killer is nearby, but does not know which of several people it is. He knows he must find out who the killer is, both to prove his own innocence, and knowing that he, himself, is now in the murderer’s sights.
END
Posted in Fiction | Tagged fiction; suspense; murder; plots | Leave a Comment »
September 11, 2008
Merriam-Webster will be happy to email you a word every day, with its uses, examples of use, and etymology. This is an informative service, and recommended. However, the pronunciations M-W recommends are often slovenly, at times too-obviously reflecting practices of ignorant people. This just encourages, and serves to justify, sloppy speech. It also bedevils new Americans (and our children, too) who are trying their best to learn our language. It’s no wonder that the English spoken by people who were educated in India, Africa, or the Mid-East, for example, is often clearer and more intelligible than that of native Americans such as myself.
Example: How would you say “exasperate”? The folks at M-W seem to pronounce it \ig-ZAS-puh-rayt\. Or perhaps they don’t actually say it this way, themselves; they just think that most Americans do, and therefore we all should.
There are several problems with “\ig-ZAS-puh-rayt\”:
(a) Where did the initial ‘i’ and ‘g’ come from? What’s wrong with ‘e’ and ‘x’ (\ks\), just as spelled? I’ve lived in six U.S. states (both coasts and in between); I don’t think I’ve ever heard “\ig-ZAS-puh-rayt\”.
(b) The derivation of the word is ‘ex’, plus ‘asper’, plus a common suffix. In English, we would split this word, if needed, both in speaking and in spelling, exactly that way: ex-asper…’. M-W splits the initial consonant between two syllables, resulting in a \ZAS\ that has no historical justification.
(c) If we must have \puhrayt\, at least split it \puhr-ayt\, giving a decent respect to the embedded ‘asper’, and the existence of ‘ate’ \ayt\ (not ‘rate’) as an English suffix with the required meaning.
(d) Any recommended pronunciation, such as \ig-ZAS-puh-rayt\, either respects the evolution of the word, or privileges the speech of one class or region. In the past, the speech of wealthy white people in the Northeast was privileged over the speech of, for example, whites in Tennessee or Idaho, and over racial minorities as well. The only way to avoid such snobbery is to base pronunciation on the structure of the word itself, and its evolution over time.
“Not a sermon; just a harangue.”
(References: See the discussion of “speak as you spell” in Modern English Usage, 2d edition, p.483; see also the analogous discussion in the 1st edition, p.466f. Fowler would have liked “\ig-ZAS-puh-rayt\”.)
END
Posted in Language | Tagged exasperate, Language, merriam-webster | Leave a Comment »
September 11, 2008
‘Shame-faced’ is not derived from ‘shame’ and ‘faced’, but from ‘shamfast’, i.e., held fast by a feeling of shame — nothing to do with faces.
This is an example of ‘folk etymology’, a word or usage based on a derivation that is, historically, not the case.
Usage experts dislike folk etymology. They don’t actually say ‘poo-poo’ (etymology unknown), or ‘tut-tut’, but they might as well use these terms.
But consider: folk etymology may be a normal and robust way the language grows — and don’t we often see shame expressed in a face?
Heidegger made frequent and shameless (derived from ‘shame’ and ‘less’) use of folk etymology in his philosophical works. Although often derided by later philosophers, it was, in his hands, a remarkably useful and frugiferous tool.
END
Posted in Language | Tagged folk etymology; Heidegger | Leave a Comment »
August 29, 2008
Two writers, A and B, meet on line. They agree to wiki a story. A writes a rough draft. B modifies it. A adds more. B adds his own story elements and new characters. One of the new elements is a murder; one of the new characters is a murderer. A repeatedly deletes the character, but B keeps writing him back in. Just before the collaboration would have broken down in anger and recrimination, the murderer finds A, at work on his computer. B can now complete the story the way he wanted to.
END
Posted in Fiction | Tagged murder, wiki, writing collaboration | Leave a Comment »
August 29, 2008
Charles Babbage, an inventor of the computer, was a fount of ideas, mostly impractical given the state of engineering in his day. His autobiography is a wonderful document. But he also wrote a lengthy treatise titled “Economy of Machines and Manufactures” [downloadable from Gutenberg] filled with ideas writers may find useful.
For example, Babbage envisioned a tin speaking-tube reaching from London to Liverpool, where each side of the conversation would require a wait of seventeen minutes, owing to the speed of sound. And he conceived a mechanical telegraph that was, of course, never built:
“Let us imagine a series of high pillars erected at frequent intervals, perhaps every hundred feet, and as nearly as possible in a straight line between two post towns. An iron or steel wire must be stretched over proper supports, fixed on each of these pillars, and terminating at the end of every three or five miles, as may be found expedient, in a very strong support, by which it may be stretched. At each of these latter points a man ought to reside in a small stationhouse. A narrow cylindrical tin case, to contain the letters, might be suspended by two wheels rolling upon this wire; the cases being so constructed as to enable the wheels to pass unimpeded by the fixed supports of the wire. An endless wire of much smaller size must pass over two drums, one at each end of the station. This wire should be supported on rollers, fixed to the supports of the great wire, and at a short distance below it. There would thus be two branches of the smaller wire always accompanying the larger one; and the attendant at either station, by turning the drum, might cause them to move with great velocity in opposite directions. In order to convey the cylinder which contains the letters, it would only be necessary to attach it by a string, or by a catch, to either of the branches of the endless wire. Thus it would be conveyed speedily to the next station, where it would be removed by the attendant to the commencement of the next wire, and so forwarded. It is unnecessary to enter into the details which this, or any similar plan, would require. The difficulties are obvious; but if: these could be overcome, it would present many advantages besides velocity; for if an attendant resided at each station, the additional expense of having two or three deliveries of letters every day, and even of sending expresses at any moment, would be comparatively trifling; nor is it impossible that the stretched wire might itself be available for a species of telegraphic communication yet more rapid.“
END
Posted in Fiction | Tagged Charles Babbage, mechanical telegraph, speaking-tubes | Leave a Comment »
August 29, 2008
The following comment was posted to www.sciam.com (Scientific American on line) in response to an article on climate change:
“This article shows a bland acquiescence to the presence on this planet of billions of voracious members of a single species — ours. It is time to engage in a debate as to a reasonable and responsible target level of human population, plus or minus a hundred million or so, and the best scientific and ethical ways of achieving that population level. 50 billion? Way too many. Zero? Too few. Somewhere between there should be a point we could all agree on, plus or minus a few hundred million.” – Terence Kuch
<END>
Posted in Irresponsible Opinions | Tagged population, population bomb | Leave a Comment »
August 4, 2008
from the Washington Post, 03 August 2008, page A4:
” ‘The use of force sometimes looks violent,’ said Patrick Lynch, president of the [New York City] Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.”
Posted in Fiction | Tagged police | Leave a Comment »
July 24, 2008
The following arrived in spam email. Here it is, unaltered except for the addition of some line breaks:
“The practick part, he ought besides the keeping that had saved
he is my friend, then,
said he was not the little reserve which he exhibited
then fight with the sons of pandu,
what reverses a wonderful facial ugliness.
He had, however, been trading with Indians.
The expedition was of such a fate,
that fierce bowman shooting came from behind the palms.
No I was to wait for not unknown to thee.
Do thou, however, instruct as the last fire company passed,
the blue umbrella has been composed.
Thou art he whose dancing it is not good to live long in one place.
Therefore.”
[end]
Posted in Poems | Tagged Add new tag, found poems, junk email | Leave a Comment »
June 10, 2008
“was prisoner?” a found poem
Following is the complete unaltered text of a junk email sent to me and uncountable others in June of 2008. There are some memorable lines, and the whole shows the author (presumably a piece of software whose talents are being wasted on some hedge-fund application) to be worried, unsure. If it knows as much about the world as we do, no wonder! – TK
was prisoner? or No.
Not infrastructure by liability. his kirk In thorn. My no prominent. Of at mail. A the questionable telephony inhibited. Bachelor or dyslexia. As presumption so diminution. Of tier? A do surgical instill. I stakeholder Is focal. The worry. A in brains.
Be be dynamite shell fish. parts my perm. it promenade, within it shaman.
Are uprising? is Go. With governing be vise. Of duet He ginger. Have at moral. As as vampire. A the arab structure freezer.
Arcade my radical.
At partnership? by Of. Is crossover at isn+t. Or cellar A kicks. it as forbid. He on sleep. My to rigid quiet doorstep. suffice or colt.
For nevertheless a radiant. Which enzyme? you the gravity satisfaction.
But requirement Of credit. was importance. by it imaginative. Are no financier injury trauma. bunny do coward. do bout, interstate go cloth.
With creative. Have of misunderstood, counselor. The conjoint rotary. I yoke is assembly occidental. Which as advances compensate energetic. anal an forty. indication finnish as approve. To on holder markup.
Of as is discern go dare. Of in warrior. At to craps backlash incredible. Or to complacency leach back. Capricorn go pigeon. rendezvous the arrival chimney. it underneath. by flyer preservation bloom.
in my an causation the antiquity. Of my test. you to punk deliverance parallelism. As is worth cataract indefinitely. harden to folly. cultivate of training courtyard. by calculus.
At in of reliance on dare. his as ratify. But so sofa confess unhealthy. As go headset airline offspring. penetrating as obsession. modify by refrain insensitive. Of covenant. by nineteenth strict conceal.
Of on do flavor no nomad. No the skim. his by terminology restorative programme. Of a heavenly fossil crackdown. uncle as overheads. chandler is novel shortly. An flea. do prescriptive desperate equity.
his turnpike? To or ferry feminist. by divine An kelvin. As coin. Or my activity. Or in refusal tiger degrade. borrow it minimize. so mercer, longstanding to advertisement.
Not communist? And by volleyball rule. Not autism A capability. An races. An my couldn+t. The it grandfather performance hung.
recap as evening.
no basil, therefore my burgess.
you gram? To on favorite abundant. An sticker To streak. Have burglary. But as moot. At no zulu cosmopolitan undercut.
skin as rhythm. as trajectory, sugar an tycoon.
END
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged found poems; junk email | Leave a Comment »
