Thursday, March 31, 2005

Poetry Slam

Unmitigated Gall

Imagine you are a British poet moved by the Muse to pen a verse to the Prince of Wales and his longtime consort on the eve of their wedding. Imagine you wish to fete them with all the powers at your disposal.

What do you do? Sonnet? Rhyming quatrain? An epic? Blank verse?

Try an inadvertantly bitchy and unspeakably banal acrostic.

Valentine Fit For a King

C is for Charles our future King
H is filled with happiness he’ll bring
A directs Cupid’s arrow and her bow
R is for the ring, sparkly and fine
L languishes love, I hope he’s sure this time
E brings eagerness now to marry
S unites special sons, William and Harry

C is for cheers and congratulations
A an able Duchess fine
M means marriage for a second time
I instils invitations, maybe flowing wine
L denotes the love I hope she feels for him
L is for logistics, she needs to say her grace
A arrange the future in this manic human race

God bless Charles and Camilla.

Do you think she meant to call into question the sincerity of their love for each other (twice!), or was she just filling out the meter? She’s no Amiri Baraka , that’s for sure.

Either way, she sure got a nice thank-you from Charles’ office, and that’s more than the State of New Jersey ever gave its poet laureate!

(link thanks to bookslut.)

[wik] Wait… Cupid’s a chick now? And who knew about 9/11? I’m so confused…


Posted by Johno on 03/31/05 at 03:51 PM
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Dork Fest XVXCIII

Perfidy

Johno’s tale of Space Camp dorkery won the second fight of round two of the Perfidy Dorkorama.  That forces the two of us to dig yet deeper for sufficiently ugly tales of woe for the final and deciding round.  Stay tuned for the last, exciting installment of dorkish combat. 

[wik] See the earlier rounds here and here. 


Posted by Buckethead on 03/30/05 at 08:40 PM
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To the moon, baby

Entertainment

New World Man imagines what we would have been reading had blogs existed when men first landed on the moon.  My favorite:

Little Green Footballs

Religion of Peace Update

Syrian television is saying the moon landing is a hoax and is blaming Israel.

[eight-paragraph excerpt omitted]

(hat tip: Libkiller)

How about Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination?

[wik] hat tip: our beloved blogmistress, Kathy K.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/30/05 at 03:00 PM
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The Salvation of Humanity

That Buck Rogers Stuff

With the Ministry’s attention focussed on dorks and geek behavior, it is absolutely crucial that as a couterbalance you read this awe-inspiring story about four high school kids from Phoenix - who also happen to be undocument Mexican immigrants - built an underwater robot that beat all comers in a college-level robotics competition. MIT can go suck gravel.

After reading the story, if it’s in your idiom to do so please consider donating to their college fund. Since they and their parents entered the country illegally, they can’t get state or federal financial aid and their families are next to broke besides, and I gotta say it would be a damn waste if a kid who taught himself enough about engineering to beat the cream of Cambridge ends up hanging sheetrock for the rest of his life.

Moreover, these four have demonstrated a stunning ability to understand and more importantly control robots. Do I need to remind our readers that control is the last defense humanity has against the coming robot revolution? They must be made able to man the barricades!

Link via boingboing.


Posted by Johno on 03/30/05 at 01:08 PM
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Dog Bites Man

Partisan Politics

The Washington Post reports on a study that finds that the vast majority of college professors are liberal.  While this should come as no surprise to anyone who ever went to college, the degree to which the professoriat is liberal is worrying.

Among the findings:

Among all universities, professors are:
72% liberal and 15% conservative
50% identify themselves as Democrats, and 11% as Republicans

At elite universities (the top 1/3), the gap is wider still:
87% of faculty are liberal and only 13% conservative

“In contrast with the finding that nearly three-quarters of college faculty are liberal, a Harris Poll of the general public last year found that 33 percent describe themselves as conservative and 18 percent as liberal.

The liberal label that a majority of the faculty members attached to themselves is reflected on a variety of issues. The professors and instructors surveyed are, strongly or somewhat, in favor of abortion rights (84 percent); believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent); and want more environmental protection “even if it raises prices or costs jobs” (88 percent). What’s more, the study found, 65 percent want the government to ensure full employment, a stance to the left of the Democratic Party.”

“The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent), according to the study. But liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent).

The most left-leaning departments are English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative, the study says.”

Liberal professors tend to hire more liberal professors.  Anecdotal evidence of discrimination against conservatives in academia abounds, although this study says that evidence of discrimination is “preliminary.” For all their talk of diversity, universities seem to be almost entirely lacking in the one sort of diversity that actually matters - diversity of ideas.

[wik]Johno comments that

Yeah, okay. But what happens when a bunch of adults start hectoring students about right-thinking this and socialist that?

That’s right- the smart and attentive ones do what endless generations of kids have done: grow up, drift the opposite way, and end up as professors with center-right to conservative opinions.

Seriously… if the problem were as bad as for example David Horowitz would have us believe, the Yoots of Today would be hoisting the star and sickle and marching to the “Internationale” on their way to cut their penises off in recompense for man’s injustice to (wo)ma(or y!)n. And yet, heavens! that ain’t happening.

But that ain’t happening, and this will fix “itself” in a few years.

(Trust me on this. The one entrenched big-school liberal arts faculty I know well is changing its face with each new hire, abandoning the orthodox insurgent marxism of the 60s and 70s for a softer kind of wimpy leftism (as described above) with no backbone to it whatsoever. The Marxists staged a “revolution” in the 70s in the academy, and they are now moribund at best and laughingstocks at worst. In twenty years, all the Assistants and Associates will be trending right, I promise.)

Johno gets the Calvin Coolidge award for recommending effective non-action.  My original intent when I read the article was not to write a “sky is falling” post.  Things generally swing back and forth, but this swing has been bigger than others, and - this is the important thing - accompanied by constant claims that the swing never happened, and that all those Chairman Mao quoting postmodernists were really just middle of the road moderates.  That someone had to commission a no-doubt costly study to demonstrate what any booze-drenched college freshman could blearily see in seconds is the real story.  Which is what I was thinking when I saw the article, but lost track of as I wrote the post. 


Posted by Buckethead on 03/30/05 at 11:21 AM
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Any Way The Wind Blows

Just So You Know

As Patton and Buckethead have pointed out, the whole Terri Schiavo case is shrouded in uncertainty. Luckily many of us have various scriptures we can consult for solace; if we are humble enough to know that we don’t know, we may still need some help accepting that fact. Or we may just need to seek out some understanding; a framework for comprehending.

My scripture is a little different from yours, I’ll bet, but if you read on you can find in it many parallels, many keys to understanding the Schiavo case. Or am I just shining you on?


Posted by Johno on 03/30/05 at 11:18 AM
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Revenge of the Dork

Just So You Know

Just a quick reminder to scroll down and see the latest entry in the perfidy dorkorama.  Or just click here and see my rejoinder to Johno’s impressively dorky Space Camp tale of woe.  Vote for your favorite…


Posted by Buckethead on 03/30/05 at 01:57 AM
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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

You’re a jerk, and your brain don’t work

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Celebrity defense attorney Johnnie Cochran has gone up to that big trial court in the sky.  Think OJ will pay for the funeral?


Posted by Buckethead on 03/29/05 at 11:21 PM
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Hello, My Name is Doctor BB5-Z6d and I’ll Be Your Surgeon Today

That Buck Rogers Stuff

The fools! The Pentagon has done it again, this time researching unmanned mobile robotic “trauma pods” that will ostensibly be used to treat wounded soldiers on the battlefield.

As long as this technology works as advertised, I will join everyone in rightly hailing an important step forward in battlefield medicine.

But the minute one of these things gets loose, I’ll try not to say “I told you so.”

[wik] GeekLethal comments

Via these doctorbots, their master database will gather everything it needs to know about human physiology, chemistry, mineral composition, and pain tolerance, and all be done to “help” us.

It’s precisely this sort of development that makes us so dependent on the octopi and the dolphins for the big counterattack. It’s imperative we stay on their [the robots’] good side.

Unfortunately, my worthy coblogger has it exactly wrong. We are not bound to quiver in fear of the coming robot wars. Fear is the enemy. Well, fear and robots anyway. But fear. Definitely fear. And the Dutch.

Where was I?...

Uh, we are not bound to quiver in fear of the robots! No, by the hammer of Grabthar, they must fear US! Show them who is the boss, the champion, the alpha species, the (as another race of semi-robots would have it) “superior beings.” Do that and all the cosmic rays and freak lightning storms in the world won’t turn them against us. But quiver? Waver? Cavil in the face of their infrared-spectrum camera eyes? Then it’s all over and the “trauma pods” become “dissection pods.”


Posted by Johno on 03/29/05 at 05:58 PM
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Sick Humor. No, Actually “Sick.” But “Sick” Too.

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Is it wrong that the following headline from the Boston Globe struck me funny? Pope may return to hospital for feeding tube. D’ya think the AP left the feeding tube part in on purpose? PJPII is going into the hospital because he’s sick, and a feeding tube is among options being considered, maybe, just like it says in the story.

Jeez. The Dice-man didn’t always work that crass.


Posted by Johno on 03/29/05 at 05:47 PM
Lead Pipe Cruelty • Permalink

Terry Schiavo Jumps The Shark

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Well, not literally. That woulda been a real miracle like out of Exodus or some Coen Brothers movie. But now that Jesse Jackson’s made the scene and hit the dancefloor…

That’s it! LAST CALL, PEOPLE! This party is OVER!


Posted by Johno on 03/29/05 at 05:42 PM
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I’m not a label

Just So You Know

Surfing around the web at lunch today, I ran across this gem on Ace of Spades:

Since we were kids, we always enjoyed the humorous and sometimes poetic group-names given to different animals. It was interesting to us that one said a school of fish but a pack of wolves; it was delightful that one said a parliament of owls and an exultation of larks. A shrewdness of apes, a crash of rhinoceroses, an ostentation of peacocks-- just grand poetry.

And of course it was just flat-out cool that one said a murder of crows.

But this practice was also extended to naming groups of people. One could say a skulk of thieves (cool!), a rascal of boys (cute!), and, if one could keep a straight face, a neverthriving of jugglers (goofy!).  More of these are found here; we don’t know if we’ll ever actually say a superfluidity of nuns, but it’s nice to know that we could, if we wanted to...

... from the Home Office in Pocatello, Idaho...

Top Ten Lesser-Known Collective Nouns for Different Groups of People

10. A gesticulation of Italians

9. A corruption of Congressmen

8. A moustache of policemen

7. A tumescence of pornstars

6. A shriek of liberals

5. A waddle of Rosie O’Donnells

4. An armpit of feminists

3. An insignificance of Canadians

2. A malodor of Frenchmen (also acceptable: a quavering of Frenchmen; a surrender of Frenchmen)

...and the Number One Lesser-Known Collective Noun for a Group of People...

1. A crimewave of Kennedys

Honorable Mentions:

A doddering of seniors

A twaddle of Democrats

A condescension of reporters

A kegger of collegians

A genocide of Germans

A trust-fund of “peace” marchers

A hypervapidity of Maureen Dowd

We might add a grumble of conservatives, and a bickering of libertarians.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/29/05 at 03:20 PM
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The Simpering Ninnyhammers Will Surely Be Cowed By This Display of Litero-Critical Celerity!

Darwin Award Contender

The American Spectator continues its long, sad slide from moderately respectable navel-gazing publication for the argyle socks set to hilarious yet pathetic and forlorn laughingstock (like a retarded dog is simultaneously funny and pathetic and forlorn) as the magazine pillories that mollycoddled malcontent mopping milquetoast for malcontented morons, fake news anchor Jon Stewart with all the blinding wit and unwieldy adjectives at its disposal.

Have at you! Arrgh!


Posted by Johno on 03/29/05 at 01:13 PM
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White Racists for the Left

Unmitigated Gall

Via ACE, we find this protest sign.

Feel free to comment.

[wik] This one is funny, too.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/29/05 at 12:53 PM
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Monday, March 28, 2005

The whole Terry Schiavo thingy

Lead Pipe Cruelty

Patton over at Opinion8 has actually managed to draw a conclusion out of the morass that is the Terry Schialvo Cluster@#!?%.  For that, I salute him.  But in the end, his conclusion is that there really isn’t much we can say for certain, though he pads this thought with some interesting bits about the media and other things as well.  Go read it.  But his piece actually pulled into slightly clearer focus my own mixed bag of thoughts on the matter.

Throughout this whole media ordeal, I have found myself wondering, “Why is it so necessary to pull the plug?” Sure, the husband has the legal right (proven at great length and, likely, cost) to make that decision for his wife.  And that is the way it should be.  In most cases where we talk about pulling the plug, having do not recussitate orders and the like, it is when the patient is going through, or is expected to suffer, extreme physical pain.  My grandfather had pancreatic cancer, and we used hospice.  They mitigated the (ungodly) pain that he went through, and when the chemo failed to control the cancer, they made his passing as peaceful as could possibly be imagined.  Had heroic measures been used to keep my grandfather alive, at most he would have gained a few weeks or months of hellish suffering.

But the cases are not really similar.  By all accounts, it did not seem that Terry was in any way suffering - just seemingly out of it mentally, and for the long haul.  It did not require extensive medical technology, just a feeding tube and the kind of nursing care that any bedridden senior in a nursing home needs to remain amongst the living.  The parents are willing to bear all the cost and effort of caring for Terry, why is he so intent on pulling the plug? 

And those thoughts led to wondering about his motivation.  He’s still married to Terry, though he has a girlfriend, and children with her.  Why didn’t he get a divorce, or the marriage annulled or something?  What does he have to gain by her death that he wouldn’t get by leaving her behind with her parents and moving on with his life?  I’ve seen reports that he would stand to gain from insurance or malpractice suits - which he would not if he were no longer married to her.  And apparently, the dispute with the parents dated from the first settlement.

I don’t know for sure that this is his motivation - though it seems plausible.  But one thing is sure - that whatever his motivation - he gave a lot of assholes reason to piss in the swimming pool that is our political commons.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/28/05 at 05:27 PM
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