The following is the winning entry in an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term: This year’s term was Political Correctness.
The winner wrote: ‘Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end’
R.J.Wiedemann.LtCol.USMC Ret.
Don’t know if the story is on the level, but the definition is spot on!
I just got back from two weeks in South Korea (not actually Japan-related, I know, but it’s close). While in Korea I made a number of field recordings with my portable audio recorder. It’s a nice way to remember the trip, an additional sense memory to complement pictures.
I made an “album” of them, and have uploaded it here:
It’s about 30 minutes long. I put it together like a continuous mix, arranged chronologically as I went through the country, but broke up the tracks so you don’t always have to listen to the whole thing.
For those of you interested in such things, I recorded it with an Edirol R-09 recorder at 24 bits. I assembled it in Logic and added just a touch of normalization and EQ, where necessary, and bounced it down to 16 bits. The final editing I did in Peak. I then converted the files to MP3 at 160 kbps for Web distribution. (If you’d like the full, CD-quality tracks, let me know. kemekthedopecomputer[at]hotmail[dot]com)
I know this is totally off topic, but much of the blame credit for the development of my warped unique sense of humor lies with George Carlin. May he rest in peace.
Swiss lawyers are elaborating the doctrine of vegetable rights. “A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring “account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms.” No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out.” In short, they are arguing that plants have inherent rights which humans can’t transgress. It sounds ridiculous. Why should we care? But we should.
A 24 page PDF edition of the committee report can be read here. One of the arguments for plant rights is that vegetables are members of “collectives”. But beyond that, each individual plant has inherent worth, rather in the way that men used to have. Therefore the committee concludes that “it is unanimously held that plants may not be arbitrarily destroyed … the majority considers this morally impermissible because something bad is being done to the plant itself without rational reason and thus without justification.”
But who is really being “empowered” by the Swiss committee’s decision? Is it plants? No. It is bureaucrats. The point of vegetable rights isn’t to give plants dignity but to transfer yet more individual human freedoms to activists and government officials.
found an interesting article in the yale daily news today. it might not fit the general theme of japundit, but it certainly will tap your wtf tolerance for the day.
apparently creating hoax videos of amatuer “drug” induced miscarriages combined with what is most likely congealed menstrual blood (mixed with saline) smeared on paper wrapped around a cube frame constitutes art in america’s ivy league schools these days.
what i find humorous is the defense of the piece by yale, who call the story behind the work a piece of “performance art.” funny how no one made mention of that to anyone until the news broke online. it seems the faculty of the school were willing to let students, campus groups, and the general public believe that this display was factual, even not letting the school newspaper in on the deal until the story reached the public and the shit hit the fan.
apparently part of the effect or message (the message i took away: some people in arts college are really disgusting people with no artistic talent that belong in a mental hospital) could only be achieved by letting people believe it was real, or more like the student was just a publicity whore and the school was acting as her pimp, stirring up controversy for recognition.
even more pathetic is the likely outcome of the matter. the controversy will achieve the designers’ aim and the girl will become a famous (i refuse to say artist here) and live the high life by selling her work to rich douchebags who have no sense of taste and want to have something “edgey.”
Reader Mike Jones (known as maiko here on Japundit), writes in to let us know about how last week’s post about Yael Naim reminded him of talented New Zealand songstress Anika Moa.
The following is one of her older hits titled Youthful.
I just discovered Yael Naim the other day while looking for music to play on the podcast, and so I was surprised to hear her music being played on FM Tochigi when I was in the car this afternoon. The video below already has been viewed more than 4 million times, so I guess that makes me a bit of a latecomer to her fan club.
Nothing to do with Japan, but heck. . . It’s Saturday
japundits, as human beings, symbiotic fish, and the transcendent beings known as /4/chans, we must all, to truly live, at some point in our lives be dedicated to a higher purpose. whilst scanning the internet i came upon a website, which along with the recent spat with fg inspired me.
in nicaragua there is a sleepy town of fifty thousand people by the name of bluefields. at first glance it seems to be like any other central american/carribean town. but then there are the mansions fully stocked with the latest electronics, the new school, the renovated churches, the fully stocked liquor shelves and the generally high standard of living for a place with a 85% unemployment rate and no large foreign community. violent crime is unheard of, police deemed unnecessary, poverty ameliorated, federal taxes and government non existent, and nightly parties are hosted by the town elders. the source of all this wealth and prosperity in a town where none of it is created? cocaine thrown overboard by busted drug runners washed by the gulf currents to this locale, sold by the townspeople on the black market.
how does such a town exist without constant harrassment from the nicaraguan government, the dea, the cia, and the colombian kingpins, you ask? why it is a hold over from the last nicaraguan civil war which left the area surrounding occupied by the heavily armed and fiercely independent miskito natives. not only do they keep would be authorities away, but also support the salvaging of cocaine which they see as a blessing.
Just an off-topic blurb to announce that playwright David Ives, who also happens to be my cousin, has a play opening on Broadway to some pretty good reviews.
Titled Is He Dead?, the play actually is from an unfinished script by Mark Twain, which has been adapted by David to the modern stage.
If anyone out there is considering an upgrade to NORTON 360, just a friendly word of warning. . . Don’t!
We came up for an annual renewal of Norton Internet Security 2006 and made the mistake of clickiing the Norton 360 upgrade instead, being tempted by the fact that purchasing a single license allowed you to install it on up to three computers.
What a mistake!
My system slowed down so much I felt like I was back in the 16-bit CPU days. I would click a button or execute a command and had to standby waiting for the computer to respond.
Anyway, we have returned to NS 2006 and things are pretty much back to normal.
