"... declared a fake, forgotten in a closet for decades and then found to be the real deal."
Does an object retain the spirit of the dead?
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Does an object retain the spirit of the dead?
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Purchase of the day...
... and by day I mean yesterday: Starbucks VIA Ready Brew Coffee (Amazon Associates earnings to the blog: $1.00).
Many thanks to everyone — in every language except Yanomamö since there is no word for "thank you" in Yanomamö, the language of the fierce people — who showed their support by shopping through the Althouse Amazon portal.
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Many thanks to everyone — in every language except Yanomamö since there is no word for "thank you" in Yanomamö, the language of the fierce people — who showed their support by shopping through the Althouse Amazon portal.
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
"[S]he noticed there were more bills, lots of bills, in the snow near the sidewalk, and she figured she had better call police...."
If you would call the police in this situation, would it be because that's the sort of honest, upright person you are or would it be because it was broad daylight and the bills weren't in a neat little bundle but spread out on the snow, in which case the activity of picking them up risks: 1. making you look suspicious (and somebody might call the cops on you), and 2. other people showing up and competing with you in the pickup (in which case, you might need police protection and you want to be the one to get your name on the found-money claim)?
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Friday, 11 January 2013
"The Charmin corporate Twitter account got in on it with a surprisingly trenchant commentary on the disposability of American currency."
That's the way Slate — displaying the winners of its design-a-$1-trillion-coin contest — refers to the symbolism here:
"Surprisingly trenchant commentary." Come on! I like delicate toilet paper, but why the delicacy talking about toilet paper? What, exactly, is the commentary? I assumed it was: American currency is something you may as well wipe your ass with. But then I thought the idea was: Uh, oh, we just pooped ourselves.
Maybe you're wracking your brain for a way to use the old "Don't Squeeze the Charmin" slogan, but that was the 1960s. The current slogans — if I am to believe the Charmin Wikipedia page — are: "Enjoy the Charmin experience" and "Enjoy The Go." Enjoy the go?! Put that on the coin. Hell, make that the national motto. "In God We Trust" is getting old. It's divisive. And, frankly, it's unfair to God.
"Enjoy the Go"... I looked it up to see how they were playing this slogan in the commercials:
The relief. The calm. The clean. The comfort.
See? That's the way you'll feel after that $1-trillion is deposited in thetoilet bank. This image evokes Sigmund Freud:
(I'm riffing on the toilet paper topic topic Meade introduced late last night. That was Meade — did you notice? — not me.)
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"Surprisingly trenchant commentary." Come on! I like delicate toilet paper, but why the delicacy talking about toilet paper? What, exactly, is the commentary? I assumed it was: American currency is something you may as well wipe your ass with. But then I thought the idea was: Uh, oh, we just pooped ourselves.
Maybe you're wracking your brain for a way to use the old "Don't Squeeze the Charmin" slogan, but that was the 1960s. The current slogans — if I am to believe the Charmin Wikipedia page — are: "Enjoy the Charmin experience" and "Enjoy The Go." Enjoy the go?! Put that on the coin. Hell, make that the national motto. "In God We Trust" is getting old. It's divisive. And, frankly, it's unfair to God.
"Enjoy the Go"... I looked it up to see how they were playing this slogan in the commercials:
The relief. The calm. The clean. The comfort.
See? That's the way you'll feel after that $1-trillion is deposited in the
Freud suggested that children in the anal stage of development regard the release of their feces as a gift to the parent — a gift that can be given or withheld. Children will release the feces if given sufficient love and withhold them if not. In Freudian thought, fecal matter becomes a type of currency in the parent-child relationship, which can be withheld or dispensed, thus giving the child a sense of control. The word currency is appropriate in this context; Freud assumed that the human unconscious makes a symbolic equation between feces and money. In a 1911 paper on dreams in folklore, he noted that according to ancient Eastern mythology, “gold is the excrement of hell” (Freud & Oppenheim, 1911/1958, p. 157).Hell!
(I'm riffing on the toilet paper topic topic Meade introduced late last night. That was Meade — did you notice? — not me.)
Monday, 7 January 2013
"Should President Obama be willing to print a $1 trillion platinum coin if Republicans try to force America into default?"
"Yes, absolutely. He will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives: one that’s silly but benign, the other that’s equally silly but both vile and disastrous. The decision should be obvious."
Says Paul Krugman.
It's strange that it's come to this, but I don't believe the President of the United States would choose to do something that will strike the people as so bizarre, even if he feels capable of articulating the legal theory with a straight face. The President must maintain the people's trust and confidence. He must be comprehensible as normal, sound, and sane to ordinary folks.
ADDED:
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Says Paul Krugman.
It's strange that it's come to this, but I don't believe the President of the United States would choose to do something that will strike the people as so bizarre, even if he feels capable of articulating the legal theory with a straight face. The President must maintain the people's trust and confidence. He must be comprehensible as normal, sound, and sane to ordinary folks.
ADDED:
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