- Well, whaddayou know? “The Happy Marriage is the ‘Me’ Marriage” — not the ego-me, but the growing-me. (NY Times free subscription link)
- You heard about the man facing five years in prison for reading his wife’s email. Did you know that his act was “outed” by a good deed he attempted to do? Yes, it may have been done partly from vindictiveness; still, he was trying to save a kid from abuse.
- You saw the cartoon. Now read why a couple of fluffy bears (or are they dogs?) are making more economic sense than your average Ph.D. economist. At least to 4,000,000 YouTube watchers.
- Mobile prison guard towers coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you. Thanks to fed Homeland (Achtung!) Security grants, of course. (via Freedoms Phoenix.)
- Coming soon to a prison, a hospital, or a town square near you. (NY Times link) But OTOH, we can also hope they’ll be overwhelmed with data.
- To heck with all that dreariness. Instead, three delightful dog stories: Esperanza, a stray with a badly broken leg, still manages to be a supermom; One pound dog saves the life of another; and yep, that’s one smart border collie. (My BC/ACD cross — a mix of the #1 and #10 smartest breeds in the world — knows only one word — “ball” — and fails to recognize that when she’s not in the mood to play.)
- The writer in me is so tempted. The article is five years old, but the hyperactive five-year-old that jumps around in my brain when I’m trying to begin an article doesn’t care. She just needs to be STFU.
- On Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “When the Soviet Union fell, almost all property in Russia was in the hands of the state. This meant that it was controlled by government bureaucrats. At the same time, only criminal elements and those who had benefited from the connections to the authorities during the perestroika period and were able to start their own businesses had money to buy it. Khodorkovsky, a young communist league (komsomol) activist, was in the latter category. Like other nascent “capitalists,” Khodorkovsky benefited from corrupt ties to government officials to amass phenomenal wealth. … Unlike the other Russian oligarchs, who amassed wealth in similar ways, however, Khodorkovsky realized that the Russian rules of gangster capitalism had to change if Russia was ever to be a civilized country and he took steps to transform Yukos into a modern Western company. He declared his income and introduced Western standards of accounting and governance. He also began to exercise the rights of a Western businessman, including the right to finance opposition political parties. It was this that set him on a collision course with Putin.”
I wonder more about why “fluffy bears or are they dogs” garner more attention (or maybe respect? or acceptable to be paid attention to? or whatever that word is that I can’t seem to think of at the moment?) than a human being does – ? Are we so jaded at what people say that we’ve resorted to listening to cartoons? Or have we always been more inclined to listen to cartoons over “real” people presentations?…they are adorable, no doubt about it, however it’s odd that this presentation of news/views is what it takes to get people to understand/listen…..
Kinda makes me wonder if there’s to many preconceptions of what people are about to say (or their agenda) that aren’t present when a cartoon character starts talking -?……Are “the masses” really headed towards having our brains jump started by cartoons, or only by an entertaining presentation -?
Y’know, naturegirl, if the subject were anything other than economics, I’d probably be right in there agreeing with you that we’re being dumbed down unbelievably.
But in this one case, I think something different. Economists have (deliberately?) obscured the most basic principles with their high-flown obfuscations and bogus (but oh-so-complex!!) theoties that I think a cartoon brings us back closer to reality. When you get right down to it, economics is what all of us do with our money every day. And no matter how much academic talk the “experts” use, some things are always true — like you can’t spend more than you earn forever, you can’t create lasting wealth through perpetual debt, etc.
I think the cartoon gets right down to those points — while also nicely skewering some pretentions. And some huge frauds.
Good point, Claire…..and while there’s been some biased (and common sense lacking) “economic creations” in the past few decades, some “little people” who probably jumped in on it to their own advantage, far to many who abused their elitist position and plans – I kinda had hoped that by now people were a lot farther along in the knowledge dept and on to the fix it stage……-So- I’m looking forward to the fluffy bears who might be dogs putting out the ultimate revolution video 🙂
That cartoon was the inspiration for my little series of Xtranormal cartoons. Well, partial inspiration, anyway. Mine have a long ways to go before they get “4 million hits” popular. A very, very long ways. I’m not holding my breath. LOL! (You can find them all at: http://kentforliberty.com/videos.html)
ADHD meds are only an option if you’re REALLY ready to not write anymore. They make people too docile to care. It’s not really “happy”, but you’d no longer feel *uppity* enough to NEED to write.
I heard a rumor that you retired a while back, but real writers are incapable of permanent retirement. “Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in!” Bwahhhhhaaaa!
I don’t care if a book ends with some trillionaire Euro-jet trash telling you not to write, I’d bet bullion to dollars you’ll write another book……I hope!
MWD
Liked the way the cartoon put it. I think also that people are more inclined to listen to emotionless sounding cute animals than talking heads with too much makeup and irritating voices. Maybe that’s just me though.
I wonder if the med could help me remember why I walked into a room?
Anyone who writes books about why it’s good to have a bad attitude probably shouldn’t be taking pills designed to do away with a bad attitude.
(Adderall will give you a constant feeling of “too bored to care”. Kind of an odd side effect for a drug that helps you pay attention but pretty much any drug perscribed by a sociologist with a medical degree is going be like that)
Just my 2 cents…
Well, Claire, there’s always a “Judy” to encourage you to write, and bypass medication altogether. (Tho’ in your female case a “Jude” might work better.) http://www.amazon.com/Bells-Are-Ringing-Judy-Holliday/dp/B000J40AK2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid
Re computers in the hospital (“A computer-vision system can watch a hospital room and remind doctors and nurses to wash their hands, or warn of restless patients who are in danger of falling out of bed. It can, through a computer-equipped mirror, read a man’s face to detect his heart rate and other vital signs.”):
There is no system 100% workable, just as no human is 100% perfect. The monitoring of patients is only as good as the computer’s input; if “garbage” (poor understanding of restlessness or a grimace, or inaccurate signs/symptoms of delirium) is fed into the computer, then “garbage” (over-reaction and wrong interpretation of the cause) will come out.
Interesting about Affectiva, the company designing this system. The scientists feeding the computer’s “intelligence” are the ones who benefit most. But how intelligent are THEY? Will they only feed into their system what’s the medically/politically-accepted cause-and-effect? They profess to understand autism, e.g., whereas autism is not yet an absolute, fully-comprehensible diagnosis. And symptoms of dementia can show up in a number of physical problems as well, including such as diabetic crisis.
Will they next extend this computer “diagnosis” to say, ADHD? I’m sure government is eagerly waiting to introduce the use of computer vision into the school system. And into most every place that benefits the politically correct agenda.