The Sunday Times: Incoherent Philosophizing

In the Time's Magazine RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan said that

[t]oday we had a conference call. Inspectah Deck was like: “You’re telling us what to write about, you’re telling us how to rhyme. I got nothing but respect, but I’m a grown man.” I said: “You’re right. But you can’t just plant the seed and expect it to grow; you gotta nourish it. If you don’t nourish it, it may grow, but it’d be a weak crop. If you do plant, nourish it and it grows, and you don’t harvest it, the crows eat it.”

Which seems indisputable if nonetheless complete nonsense.

Elsewhere, Gabrielle Hamilton argued that it is "[t]ime to kill the mouse and swallow it." To which we can all say: amen sister, amen.

A More Just World

When the issue of economic inequality comes up, this Anatole France quote usually turns up:

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

And a good laugh is had all around. Did you know that in other parts of the world the law actually punishes some crimes on the basis of the perpetrator's wealth? In Switzerland and Finland at least if you are rich and speed your fine is determined by "the severity of the offense and the offender's income level."

One rich driving like a mad man was fine 290k in Switzerland, while the chairman of Nokia faced a 100 odd thousand dollar fine, and one particularly insane rich faces a fine that falls 40,000 dollars short of a million.

So lets do that with, say, property crimes. Poor and shoplift a pair of pants? 60 dollar fine; rich and shop lift a the same kind of pants, 10% of pre-tax income. Rich and embezzle?  50% of total wealth and 10 years in jail.  Poor and steal a neighbors digital camera? Give the camera back or replace and a week in jail.  And so on.

The idea is basically to make the punishment fit the advantages gained by any individual from being  a member of society.

Cultural Transmission

From alert reader signs of the continuation of traditional German culture:

No This is Awful.

From Balloon Juice comes a French version of Dylan's I want You. It is especially bad and, indeed may be the worst cover in the history of the world.

A Question

If the Mayans were smart enough to predict the end of our world, how come they couldn't predict the end of theirs?

Dogs and Cats

living together:

Also Fraenk Schlecht wins, while Paul and Phil remain adorably wrong or boring. Paul just provided a reasoned argument for train travel and, to hedge, if not Fraenk then Tommy Vokler.

I did not know

that the pope had a butler; let alone a leaky one. I guess that this is just one more example of no man is a hero to his valet.

Accidental Zen

Recently I overheard someone explaining relative states of foreign language skill,  which arose, the explanation ran, because

she only knows what she has  been taught while I only know what I have learned.

Some People Say

that a little knowledge is a dangerous think.  I say being stupid is a dangerous thing. As an example:

A group of fraternity brothers from Lousiana [sic] Tech University burning their textbooks in celebration of the end of the school year are believed by local authorities to have caused a fire that burned down their fraternity house.

I am confident that one or another of these frat boys will grow up to the next columnist for the NYT.

One Other Thing

People often, well not really, ask me how do stay so cheerful, the occasional deranged rant at sociopathic motorists to one side, when things aren't going so well. It is stuff like this:



The whole song makes nothing like sense and yet watching it makes me, in any event, aware of the fact that outside the stupidity of neoliberalism and the deranged antics of the Right more generally that the world is filled with people whose first commitment is to joy and nonsense.

Commerce and Art

Everybody, it's true, need a hook to sell whatever. However, I wonder why these four Norwegians picked ironic pixie women as their hook.  What the first two videos in which the ironic pixie women are ironically ironic and then the third in which four talented musicians make a joyful noise unto the lord, as it were.  As it comes up in the comments to one of them, I'll point out that while Katzenjammer may now mean hangover in German in the early modern period and at least through the 19th century it was German for Charivari.













 I came across this band via, of all people, Krugman. If you're interested, here is an hourish concert in Germany with the common language, natch, English. The video editing is sick making.


UPDATE:
By my count each one plays stringed instruments, drums, accordion, and keyboard and two play trumpets and three, I think, play the xylophone.

It really is a shame that the hour long concert dealio shows so little  of the audience as it is a nearly perfect example of the contemporary German at play, which is to say stiff and self-conscious.


UPDATE:

A video in Norwegian without subtitles of the band searching for Polar Bears:

What Cats Think

From Balloon Juice comes two videos of the inner life of cats:





I especially liked the fact that the whipped cream in the bathroom is not whipped cream.

Drive, She Said

Enjoy the weekend:



Many more riding and singing covers over to the youtube.

I Have No Idea What They're Saying

The Pogues:



I've no idea what they're saying but McGowan in his yfronts is someting or another:

You're Fired

I don't think I've ever read Sherwood Anderson, a situation in need of remedying.

Chicago
June 25, 1918

Dear Barton:

You have a man in your employ that I have thought for a long time should be fired. I refer to Sherwood Anderson. He is a fellow of a good deal of ability, but for a long time I have been convinced that his heart is not in his work.

There is no question but that this man Anderson has in some ways been an ornament to our organization. His hair, for one thing being long and mussy gives an artistic carelessness to his personal appearance that somewhat impresses such men as Frank Lloyd Wright and Mr. Curtenius of Kalamazoo when they come into the office.

But Anderson is not really productive. As I have said his heart is not in his work. I think he should be fired and if you will not do the job I should like permission to fire him myself. I therefore suggest that Anderson be asked to sever his connections with the Company on August 1st. He is a nice fellow. We will let him down easy but let's can him.

Respectfully submitted,

Sherwood Anderson

via

Bunny Ears

An earless bunny from Germany:

Der Spiegel reports that earlessness combined with

his cuteness would surely have made him a media celebrity, especially in Germany, which has a history of worshipping furry baby animals.

And so they had the "media" into take video, which could then go viral, unfortunately for the bunny the videographer stepped on and killed the earless fellow.

Odd Choices

Dr, Suess, it seems, once wanted to be taken seriously as an adult author.  Consequently, he wrote and illustrated a book on the Godiva sisters. The book disappeared without a whimper. Suess claimed that

[he] attempted to draw the sexiest babes [he] could, but they came out looking absurd.

Judge for yourself:

Perverts

This is the kind of interspecies rom-com future from which brave truth telling nut case Rick Santorum is trying to save us:

Religious Freedom

Catholic bishops insist that no one can be forced to provide contraceptives or abortions. Indeed, they prefer a regime that makes both illegal and impossible. And any number of people argue that this rule is, in fact, a violation of religious freedom. How, then, do we justify denying peyote, polygamy, polyandry, and related ect to those religions that deem one, all, or yet even more to be god's or gods' decree?
 

Happy Families

Frank Zappa and his parents:

And you thought your parents and/or children didn't understand you, what do think Christmas was like at the Zappa household?

source