I’d never heard of this guy before today, but trust me, [this is good].
[via Boing Boing]
I was thinking of sharing my fascinating thoughts on the North Korean Thing with you, but I find [via Tim Bishop] that Josh Marshall pretty much has it in hand (Edit : As does friend Matt, here), except he doesn’t use nearly as many obscenities as I do. A forgiveable offense.
I am quite confident that this too shall pass, but don’t quote me on that.
I asked a couple of days ago, in high dudgeon :
“How much more of this are Americans willing to take? How many more clear signals can there be that the principles for which their nation is claimed to stand are being dismantled and subverted by their almost-elected officials? What will it take to get them to wake the f–k up and throw these weasels out?”
and this was one of the answers left in the comments…
Thanks, Sarah. If I were American, I’d be a little scared of being branded an Enemy of the State for adding my name to the list, and being imprisoned without that old-fashioned habeus corpus to get in the way. But if I were American, you can damn well bet I would sign, anyway. At least someone’s trying to do something.
Via MeFi and OW™, something else to be really pissed about, you know, after you’re finished with all the other things on your list.
How much more of this are Americans willing to take? How many more clear signals can there be that the principles for which their nation is claimed to stand are being dismantled and subverted by their almost-elected officials? What will it take to get them to wake the f–k up and throw these weasels out?
See, now I’m all grumpy again.
I keep linking to Fishrush, because I love it. You know, in a manly way.
It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping, and can be enjoyed equally with either spoon or fork. And it makes me laugh, which in these dark times is a be-yoo-tiful thing.
This guy‘s on a trip around the planet, and his travel diaries (full of the tales like this latest of difficult defecations, hiking hardships, and all manner of mad and unpleasant things one puts oneself through on a daily basis when backpacking around the world) make me feel like hitting the road again.
Also : “lots of nice pictures too, including penis gourds and big stone penises at a fertility temple, the big jars of Laos, the big heads of Easter Island, dog eating and dried llama foetuses.”
Domesticity is wearisome, some days. Particularly on those days you find yourself bickering with your spouse about everything and nothing. Oh, to be sh-tting in a trench latrine with snowflakes swirling around your tender bits on the side of a mountain somewhere…
This article and its associated Metafilter thread make interesting reading, and are germane to the roots of my rant yesterday, perhaps. Really, though, I was just havin’ a bit of fun.
Hey, while I’m at it, Exploding Dog is really good and stuff, too. But you probably already knew that.
I could learn to like this linking without the commentary schtick… Emptybottle Lite! Now with even more sh-t that you don’t care about!
Occasionally I find stuff that I want to share, and this almost resembles a weblog for a minute or two.
Go look at some American pictures, if you’re so inclined. I don’t know a damn thing about photography, but I know what I like.
Like quonsar said, not necessarily Metafilter at it’s best, but certainly at it’s most interesting, in some ways. When the WTC was hit, when the bomb went off in Bali, and today, to offer some examples : all have been moments when it was fascinating to read the raw responses of people to tragedy, to watch how the community dealt with it, to see the both the maudlin sentimentality and the black humour, the heartfelt grief and the political opportunism, the whole sweep of emotion that folks feel when they are hammered by unexpected loss, all packaged up in one neat blue thread.
Say what you will about his recent fictional output (or his older fictional output, for that matter), I still have a soft spot for Kurt Vonnegut. At the age of 80, he’s still saying things worth listening to.
And he’s not an asshole, which still counts for something, I hope.
While we’re talking authors here, another writer whose work I’ve always enjoyed reading, Gunter Grass, is also speaking out against those murderous C students and psychopaths in Washington.
Edit : This is as good a time as any to share some statistics about Korea with you. I ran across these numbers a few days ago, and they would seem to explain much on first glance. Whether that is actually the case or not is up for debate.
There are a total of 450 public libraries in Korea. In the whole country.
These facilities serve a population of approximately 47 million people : it works out to about 110,000 people for each library, the lowest in the OECD. The ratio is actually worse here in Seoul – which is home to the equivalent of about a third of the population of Canada, a fact that never ceases to boggle me a bit – there’s one library for every 330,000 people.
The comparable figure in Europe is about 1:10,000 and in America it’s 1:20,000 or so.
Some ad-hocratic systems have arisen to compensate, as is always the case here. There are privately run shops, even in the nasty little suburb where I live, that rent a few books (mostly home-grown manga for the schoolkids) alongside the standard racks of action movies. There’s a bookmobile that comes around the human beehives once a week, too, with a couple of hundred Korean novels onboard. Small compensation for the few who have the time or energy to read anything.
As for me, even if any of these few libraries were near enough for me to visit, I’d be out of luck. None carry books in English, of course.
If any webblogger should have an Amazon wishlist and wheedle and beg for books, it’s me, by crikey. Maybe I should get a webcam, start peddling my wonderchicken pulchritude, and demand payments (“Put it on! Put it all back on! Please!”) in literature….
Nah.
What quonsar said(*). Or, in a little more length and detail – “America, oui! Bush, non!”
Following in Bb’s footsteps, here is my state of the union address :
Thank you.
“At Imaginative Pastures, we’re trained to think outside the commons.”
I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds good to me! Strong, and good, and right! Make no mistake. Our mission is to stop the bad people, and protect the good American public and their strong copyright freedoms. We are strong, and good. Really really good. Strong, too.
Go pass on some felicitations to one of the good ones, won’t you? Happy Birthday, Jonathon, ya bastard†!
† Aussie-style camaraderie. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited by law.
“Some very rough notes on a potential future blog entry […] what follows is nothing more than the usual rubbish and bird dirt on the sidewalk…”
Or : essential talk and think and link. Kent hides his light away, as usual. Dig it, cats.
Dong! Resin! Speaks!
[May not be suitable for children. Void where prohibited by law. Do not operate heavy machinery while taking dong_resin.]
Also : ARE WAR PROTESTS UNPATRIOTIC?
I voted yes, yes it is unpatriotic to protest against killing, just ’cause I like to play the irredeemable asshole. Apparently about a thousand other wacky funsters had voted the same way. Oh those effervescent yanks, full of happy hijinks. God bless ’em, eh?
When I actually tried to leave a comment about how patently undemocratic (if predictable) the very implications of posing a question like that were, I got this :
That’s about right.
There are some very smart things being said by some very smart bloggers around the neighbourhood, apparently spurred at least in part by one of my occasional, typically-crude brainfarts. This pleases me, even if I’m not too interested at the moment in going meta and joining the conversation. What my bloggerly friends have to say is a pleasure to read, and although I find myself agreeing for the most part with them, I ought to make it clear that I had nothing so erudite in mind when writing the post. Just singing my song, you know?
Anyway, some Deep Thoughts and Worthwhile from the completely unsh-tweasellike Tom, Steve, Jonathon, and AKMA. I love these guys – they make me look like I’m clever, when really I’m just voluble and profane and tediously honest.
[Edit : Add The Happy Tutor to the discussion…]