The place's a dump anyway
"The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it." - Carl Becker
***
'More to quit' in drug advice row - "The UK's chief drugs adviser is predicting there will be resignations after he was forced to quit for criticising government policy... The professor most recently criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C... He told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects. He described his sacking as an example of the government's "Luddite attitude" towards science and accused Gordon Brown of making "irrational" remarks about the dangers of cannabis... The professor said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. In the past, Prof Nutt has also claimed that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse... "It is disturbing if an independent scientist should be removed for reporting sound scientific advice""
Addendum: Science chief backs cannabis view - "The UK government's chief science adviser has told BBC News that he supports the former chief drugs adviser's scientific view on cannabis"
Bering in Mind: Are there asexuals among us? On the possibility of a "fourth" sexual orientation - "Yet many asexuals are also perfectly willing to have sex if it satisfies their sexual partners; it’s not awkward or painful for them but rather, like making toast or emptying the trash, they just don’t personally derive pleasure from the act... while many asexuals are virgins, others are ironically even more experienced than your traditionally sexual friends... the only good way to solve the riddle is also a bit unsavory. But unless psychological scientists ever gather a group of willing, self-identified asexuals and, systematically and under controlled conditions, expose them to an array of erotic stimuli while measuring their physical arousal (penile erection or vaginal lubrication), the truth of the matter will lie forever hidden away in the asexual's pants"
Secrets of the Phallus: Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? - "In a series of studies published in a 2003 issue of the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, Gallup and a team of his students put the “semen displacement hypothesis” to the test using artificial genitalia of different shapes and sizes. They even concocted several batches of realistic seminal fluid. Findings from the study may not have “proved” the semen displacement hypothesis, but it certainly confirmed its principal points and made a believer out of most readers"
Art Wars: Hong Kong vs. Singapore - "Hong Kong also has another advantage: a livelier local artists scene. "Singapore is very planned," Mr. Tan says, and in the long run, that can mean missing something that "can happen if things are allowed to grow organically... while Hong Kong's overall arts scene has improved in recent times and draws such international attractions as the Chanel Mobile Art show, much of the focus, unlike Singapore's more diverse regional offerings, is on Chinese-oriented art and antiques displays"
Making the Grade Isn't About Race. It's About Parents - "Both had hit upon an essential difference between the kids who make it in school and those who don't: parents. My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap... They knew that excuses about a lack of resources and access just didn't wash at the new, state-of-the-art, $100 million T.C. Williams, where every student is given a laptop... Achievement gaps don't break down neatly along racial lines... Community activists and school administrators at T.C. Williams or around the country... cast the difference between kids who are succeeding in school and those who are not in terms of race and seem obsessed with what they call "the gap" between the test scores of white and black students... Administrators focused solely on race are stigmatizing black students. At the same time, they are encouraging the easy excuse that the kids who are not excelling are victims, as well as the idea that once schools stop being racist and raise expectations, these low achievers will suddenly blossom"
Tiny banner ads attached to flies generate buzz
stuff white people do: wonder where to start when they join the fight against racism - "The definition of racism that you probably have... "prejudice against someone based on their skin color or ethnicity" is NOT the definition that's commonly used in anti-racist circles [but] the accepted sociological definition... commonly used in academic research: "racism is prejudice plus power"... Only white people can be racist, because only white people have institutional power.... If you start talking about "reverse racism" you're going to either get insulted or laughed at, because it isn't possible under that definition; PoC don't have the power in North America, so by definition, they can't be racist. Crying "reverse racism!" is like waving a Clueless White Person Badge around... Pointing out that the colloquial definition is how Webster's Dictionary defines racism is not going to make anti-racists [admit that they're engaging in doublespeak]... [Do not use your "privilege"] to hurt PoC inadvertently (for example, by going into a PoC "safe space" and taking over the conversation)... Accept that you will make mistakes and you will show your privileged ass and people will get upset at you about it... Just make a sincere apology, figure out your mistake, and keep learning. (If you don't know how to make a sincere apology, it goes like this: "I'm sorry I hurt you by saying XYZ." Statements like "I'm sorry I did XYZ, but [offer excuse here]" or "I'm sorry if I upset you" or "I'm sorry you found my statements offensive" are not sincere apologies and they won't help the situation.)"
Translation: Due to Original Sin, white people are evil and if you point out the People of Colour are wrong (even if they are), you're being "racist" and "hurting" people. However, if you're accused of upsetting People of Colour, suck it up.
Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt - "Hardly any of these white parents had ever talked to their children directly about race... They wanted their children to grow up colorblind. But... they weren't colorblind at all. Asked how many white people are mean, these children commonly answered, "Almost none." Asked how many blacks are mean, many answered, "Some," or "A lot." Even kids who attended diverse schools answered the questions this way... For decades, it was assumed that children see race only when society points it out to them. However, child-development researchers have increasingly begun to question that presumption... The unfortunate twist of diverse schools is that they don't necessarily lead to more cross-race relationships. Often it's the opposite... the more diverse the school, the more the kids self-segregate by race and ethnicity within the school, and thus the likelihood that any two kids of different races have a friendship goes down... Harris-Britt warns that frequent predictions of future discrimination ironically become as destructive as experiences of actual discrimination: "If you overfocus on those types of events, you give the children the message that the world is going to be hostile—you're just not valued and that's just the way the world is.""
Ingroup/outgroup discrimination is hardly surprising. It is only surprising that people think it wouldn't exist without an evil society.
***
'More to quit' in drug advice row - "The UK's chief drugs adviser is predicting there will be resignations after he was forced to quit for criticising government policy... The professor most recently criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C... He told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects. He described his sacking as an example of the government's "Luddite attitude" towards science and accused Gordon Brown of making "irrational" remarks about the dangers of cannabis... The professor said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. In the past, Prof Nutt has also claimed that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse... "It is disturbing if an independent scientist should be removed for reporting sound scientific advice""
Addendum: Science chief backs cannabis view - "The UK government's chief science adviser has told BBC News that he supports the former chief drugs adviser's scientific view on cannabis"
Bering in Mind: Are there asexuals among us? On the possibility of a "fourth" sexual orientation - "Yet many asexuals are also perfectly willing to have sex if it satisfies their sexual partners; it’s not awkward or painful for them but rather, like making toast or emptying the trash, they just don’t personally derive pleasure from the act... while many asexuals are virgins, others are ironically even more experienced than your traditionally sexual friends... the only good way to solve the riddle is also a bit unsavory. But unless psychological scientists ever gather a group of willing, self-identified asexuals and, systematically and under controlled conditions, expose them to an array of erotic stimuli while measuring their physical arousal (penile erection or vaginal lubrication), the truth of the matter will lie forever hidden away in the asexual's pants"
Secrets of the Phallus: Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? - "In a series of studies published in a 2003 issue of the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, Gallup and a team of his students put the “semen displacement hypothesis” to the test using artificial genitalia of different shapes and sizes. They even concocted several batches of realistic seminal fluid. Findings from the study may not have “proved” the semen displacement hypothesis, but it certainly confirmed its principal points and made a believer out of most readers"
Art Wars: Hong Kong vs. Singapore - "Hong Kong also has another advantage: a livelier local artists scene. "Singapore is very planned," Mr. Tan says, and in the long run, that can mean missing something that "can happen if things are allowed to grow organically... while Hong Kong's overall arts scene has improved in recent times and draws such international attractions as the Chanel Mobile Art show, much of the focus, unlike Singapore's more diverse regional offerings, is on Chinese-oriented art and antiques displays"
Making the Grade Isn't About Race. It's About Parents - "Both had hit upon an essential difference between the kids who make it in school and those who don't: parents. My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap... They knew that excuses about a lack of resources and access just didn't wash at the new, state-of-the-art, $100 million T.C. Williams, where every student is given a laptop... Achievement gaps don't break down neatly along racial lines... Community activists and school administrators at T.C. Williams or around the country... cast the difference between kids who are succeeding in school and those who are not in terms of race and seem obsessed with what they call "the gap" between the test scores of white and black students... Administrators focused solely on race are stigmatizing black students. At the same time, they are encouraging the easy excuse that the kids who are not excelling are victims, as well as the idea that once schools stop being racist and raise expectations, these low achievers will suddenly blossom"
Tiny banner ads attached to flies generate buzz
stuff white people do: wonder where to start when they join the fight against racism - "The definition of racism that you probably have... "prejudice against someone based on their skin color or ethnicity" is NOT the definition that's commonly used in anti-racist circles [but] the accepted sociological definition... commonly used in academic research: "racism is prejudice plus power"... Only white people can be racist, because only white people have institutional power.... If you start talking about "reverse racism" you're going to either get insulted or laughed at, because it isn't possible under that definition; PoC don't have the power in North America, so by definition, they can't be racist. Crying "reverse racism!" is like waving a Clueless White Person Badge around... Pointing out that the colloquial definition is how Webster's Dictionary defines racism is not going to make anti-racists [admit that they're engaging in doublespeak]... [Do not use your "privilege"] to hurt PoC inadvertently (for example, by going into a PoC "safe space" and taking over the conversation)... Accept that you will make mistakes and you will show your privileged ass and people will get upset at you about it... Just make a sincere apology, figure out your mistake, and keep learning. (If you don't know how to make a sincere apology, it goes like this: "I'm sorry I hurt you by saying XYZ." Statements like "I'm sorry I did XYZ, but [offer excuse here]" or "I'm sorry if I upset you" or "I'm sorry you found my statements offensive" are not sincere apologies and they won't help the situation.)"
Translation: Due to Original Sin, white people are evil and if you point out the People of Colour are wrong (even if they are), you're being "racist" and "hurting" people. However, if you're accused of upsetting People of Colour, suck it up.
Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt - "Hardly any of these white parents had ever talked to their children directly about race... They wanted their children to grow up colorblind. But... they weren't colorblind at all. Asked how many white people are mean, these children commonly answered, "Almost none." Asked how many blacks are mean, many answered, "Some," or "A lot." Even kids who attended diverse schools answered the questions this way... For decades, it was assumed that children see race only when society points it out to them. However, child-development researchers have increasingly begun to question that presumption... The unfortunate twist of diverse schools is that they don't necessarily lead to more cross-race relationships. Often it's the opposite... the more diverse the school, the more the kids self-segregate by race and ethnicity within the school, and thus the likelihood that any two kids of different races have a friendship goes down... Harris-Britt warns that frequent predictions of future discrimination ironically become as destructive as experiences of actual discrimination: "If you overfocus on those types of events, you give the children the message that the world is going to be hostile—you're just not valued and that's just the way the world is.""
Ingroup/outgroup discrimination is hardly surprising. It is only surprising that people think it wouldn't exist without an evil society.
Minding the gap between THE PINK & THE BLUE
"In a 1950 essay on citizenship that continues to be widely cited, British sociologist T.H. Marshall noted that citizenship confers on a citizen three kinds of rights.
The first is civil rights such as the right to free speech, to own property, to freedom of religion and to equality before the law.
The second is political rights such as the right to vote and to stand for office.
The third is social rights such as the right to education, housing and protection against poverty.
To public law expert Kevin Tan, Singaporeans have some grounds when they feel they do not have enough of these rights due to them as citizens.
'If you say you are a citizen, the most blatant right is the right to vote, but because of the GRC system, there are a large number of Singaporeans who have never voted in their life. As a result, they do not feel they are citizens in the political sense,' he says.
Associate Professor Straughan adds that many Singaporeans have not had the opportunity to exercise the right to vote because of the lack of opposition.
'If you actively voted a government in, it will be in your vested interest to support that government and ensure that the governance will be a success. But if you did not exercise that right, there is a high likelihood that you may end up just watching from the sidelines and throwing in criticisms whenever you deem appropriate,' she says...
Dr Tan acknowledges that citizens have some exclusive rights, such as the right to speak freely at Speakers' Corner, but says these are not tangible enough. Political leaders have maintained repeatedly that politics remains the preserve of citizens.
'If citizens can stage protests, without a permit, everywhere, that is something else,' he says. 'If you feel you are empowered, then you are more likely to feel this country belongs to you.'
As for social rights, there is a growing perception that PRs enjoy many of the same rights citizens have, albeit with restrictions.
These include the right to live in subsidised HDB housing, even if PRs can buy only resale flats, and the right to significant subsidies in areas like education...
But the key difference, explains sociologist Sharon Siddique, is that Singapore is both a city and a nation.
Many see this place as one or the other. The fundamental issue for Dr Siddique is whether an individual considers Singapore as a nation, or just a city.
‘For those who follow the ‘Singapore is my country’ route, the identity, perks, and obligations of citizenship are vital. For those who consider Singapore primarily as a city, the freedom to leave, to move on, to see this as one place on a global cosmopolitan continuum, will prevail, whatever passport one carries,’ she says."
Meanwhile,
"Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on Wednesday...
'This is where most people make a mistake...I have tried to explain that we are different. We are a city. We are not a country,' he told 200 lawyers, many from America, at the New York State Bar Association International Section's meeting here."
"In a 1950 essay on citizenship that continues to be widely cited, British sociologist T.H. Marshall noted that citizenship confers on a citizen three kinds of rights.
The first is civil rights such as the right to free speech, to own property, to freedom of religion and to equality before the law.
The second is political rights such as the right to vote and to stand for office.
The third is social rights such as the right to education, housing and protection against poverty.
To public law expert Kevin Tan, Singaporeans have some grounds when they feel they do not have enough of these rights due to them as citizens.
'If you say you are a citizen, the most blatant right is the right to vote, but because of the GRC system, there are a large number of Singaporeans who have never voted in their life. As a result, they do not feel they are citizens in the political sense,' he says.
Associate Professor Straughan adds that many Singaporeans have not had the opportunity to exercise the right to vote because of the lack of opposition.
'If you actively voted a government in, it will be in your vested interest to support that government and ensure that the governance will be a success. But if you did not exercise that right, there is a high likelihood that you may end up just watching from the sidelines and throwing in criticisms whenever you deem appropriate,' she says...
Dr Tan acknowledges that citizens have some exclusive rights, such as the right to speak freely at Speakers' Corner, but says these are not tangible enough. Political leaders have maintained repeatedly that politics remains the preserve of citizens.
'If citizens can stage protests, without a permit, everywhere, that is something else,' he says. 'If you feel you are empowered, then you are more likely to feel this country belongs to you.'
As for social rights, there is a growing perception that PRs enjoy many of the same rights citizens have, albeit with restrictions.
These include the right to live in subsidised HDB housing, even if PRs can buy only resale flats, and the right to significant subsidies in areas like education...
But the key difference, explains sociologist Sharon Siddique, is that Singapore is both a city and a nation.
Many see this place as one or the other. The fundamental issue for Dr Siddique is whether an individual considers Singapore as a nation, or just a city.
‘For those who follow the ‘Singapore is my country’ route, the identity, perks, and obligations of citizenship are vital. For those who consider Singapore primarily as a city, the freedom to leave, to move on, to see this as one place on a global cosmopolitan continuum, will prevail, whatever passport one carries,’ she says."
Meanwhile,
"Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on Wednesday...
'This is where most people make a mistake...I have tried to explain that we are different. We are a city. We are not a country,' he told 200 lawyers, many from America, at the New York State Bar Association International Section's meeting here."
From The Onion Radio News:
Millions Cheer Ball's Passage Through Hoop
"In a landmark event today, a ball going through a hoop left millions cheering, while at the same time leading others to gnash their teeth in despair.
Experts say the far-reaching consequences of the ball going through the hoop may never be fully understood, and may lead to the loss of large sums of money, the end of relationships and violence.
Police Chief Vincent Carber (?):
"Whenever you have a ball or object go through a hoop or a goal, you have to be ready for anything"
Carber went on to say that the addition of a racquet, club or lady easily eliminates the violence prevalent in all other ball-related sports"
Millions Cheer Ball's Passage Through Hoop
"In a landmark event today, a ball going through a hoop left millions cheering, while at the same time leading others to gnash their teeth in despair.
Experts say the far-reaching consequences of the ball going through the hoop may never be fully understood, and may lead to the loss of large sums of money, the end of relationships and violence.
Police Chief Vincent Carber (?):
"Whenever you have a ball or object go through a hoop or a goal, you have to be ready for anything"
Carber went on to say that the addition of a racquet, club or lady easily eliminates the violence prevalent in all other ball-related sports"
Friday, October 30, 2009
"A lawyer starts life giving $500 worth of law for $5 and ends giving $5 worth for $500." - Benjamin H. Brewster
***
Quotes:
[On being an alibi] Gabriel, can you come home with me? I will pay you with something. [Me: That sounds dodgy. Especially since you're untying your dress]
Your pronunciation is quite good. [Me: Really? My sister says I have a Singlish accent...] You'll have no problems in Marseilles.
[Me: Is she chatting with her secret lover?] She doesn't have a secret lover. [Me: Argh. The point of a secret lover is to keep it secret]
[On a DOTA LAN party] It's because it's become an official sport that people are playing it now. [Me: That's quite sad]
[Someone: We need a gyroscope.] Eww. Isn't that the thing you put up your anus?... Bimbo moment
[On 叫我皇帝] Lucky in Singapore we don't have 'Call me Lee Kuan Yew'
Speaks in a very high voice. Very fair. No wonder all the guys like.
I've never met any guy who likes Japanese porn
My China friend came to Singapore to study. She said her English standard went down.
I realise all my ex-boyfriends had a thing for anal. [Me: All? Maybe that says something about you...]
[Me: I'm quite risk averse, and my time horizon isn't that long] You're getting married?
What XXX and I wanted to do was get a Tarsier, slit its throat and han it over his door... Keep the eyes open
[On relief teaching] I had students whipping themselves with canes... I'd usher them in and they would run out and cane each other
[On international dating] Taiwan, that one, a bit dangerous. She has a free trade policy... The rest are bilateral trade relations.
[On my taste in women] You like the prepubescent, undernourished dwarf.
Yay, I'm going to go home and watch Desperate Housewives. [Me: What shall I do?] Masturbate? [Me: *rolls eyes*]
[On what she saw outside the window] There's a lot of people out there [on the street]. [Me: You can shout at them. Then they'll come up here and beat you up. Sorry they'll come and beat me up.]
[Me on a Middle Eastern restaurant: Why are these places always so dimly lit?] So you can't see how grimy the carpet is.
[24 year old on marrying older men] I wouldn't marry anyone my age - they're too immature. [Me: I wouldn't marry anyone my age - they're too old.]
[Me on Singapore Idol: Where are all of these kids coming from?] From the birth canals of Singaporeans. I had to say that.
[On his Orientation camp] They're so young. [Me: I thought guys like young girls...] they're so immature and not full-bodied.
***
Quotes:
[On being an alibi] Gabriel, can you come home with me? I will pay you with something. [Me: That sounds dodgy. Especially since you're untying your dress]
Your pronunciation is quite good. [Me: Really? My sister says I have a Singlish accent...] You'll have no problems in Marseilles.
[Me: Is she chatting with her secret lover?] She doesn't have a secret lover. [Me: Argh. The point of a secret lover is to keep it secret]
[On a DOTA LAN party] It's because it's become an official sport that people are playing it now. [Me: That's quite sad]
[Someone: We need a gyroscope.] Eww. Isn't that the thing you put up your anus?... Bimbo moment
[On 叫我皇帝] Lucky in Singapore we don't have 'Call me Lee Kuan Yew'
Speaks in a very high voice. Very fair. No wonder all the guys like.
I've never met any guy who likes Japanese porn
My China friend came to Singapore to study. She said her English standard went down.
I realise all my ex-boyfriends had a thing for anal. [Me: All? Maybe that says something about you...]
[Me: I'm quite risk averse, and my time horizon isn't that long] You're getting married?
What XXX and I wanted to do was get a Tarsier, slit its throat and han it over his door... Keep the eyes open
[On relief teaching] I had students whipping themselves with canes... I'd usher them in and they would run out and cane each other
[On international dating] Taiwan, that one, a bit dangerous. She has a free trade policy... The rest are bilateral trade relations.
[On my taste in women] You like the prepubescent, undernourished dwarf.
Yay, I'm going to go home and watch Desperate Housewives. [Me: What shall I do?] Masturbate? [Me: *rolls eyes*]
[On what she saw outside the window] There's a lot of people out there [on the street]. [Me: You can shout at them. Then they'll come up here and beat you up. Sorry they'll come and beat me up.]
[Me on a Middle Eastern restaurant: Why are these places always so dimly lit?] So you can't see how grimy the carpet is.
[24 year old on marrying older men] I wouldn't marry anyone my age - they're too immature. [Me: I wouldn't marry anyone my age - they're too old.]
[Me on Singapore Idol: Where are all of these kids coming from?] From the birth canals of Singaporeans. I had to say that.
[On his Orientation camp] They're so young. [Me: I thought guys like young girls...] they're so immature and not full-bodied.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment." - Josh Billings
***
I remember being very amused by this article - as in the US, you don't need to be driving a car when drunk to be convicted of drunk driving.
CJ lifts jail term on drink driver
Straits Times, 1 April 2009
Man caught a second time escapes jail as, in his 1st conviction, he was drunk and asleep in parked car
ALMOST all drink drivers are jailed when caught a second time.
But the Chief Justice has lifted the jail term on one such offender, Chong Pit Khai, and fined him $5,000 instead, because he felt the circumstances for the 28-year-old's first offence in 2002 were rather different.
CJ Chan Sek Keong said in a written judgment on Monday that the law does not say jail is mandatory for repeat offenders like Chong, whose previous case had no precedent.
'In my view, using an imprisonment term for each and every case as a starting point is not necessarily desirable as a sentencing precedent. The present case shows why it is not desirable,' he said.
Chong's case was different because in his first offence, he was found drunk and asleep in a parked car by police.
Then, he was charged with being in possession of a car while under the influence of alcohol, while in the current case he was actually driving while drunk.
CJ Chan also noted that defendants do plead guilty 'especially for minor offences of which they may not be guilty for a variety of reasons'.
'This is a reality which the court should not close its eyes to or shy away from,' he said.
For this reason, a defendant is allowed to explain to the sentencing court why he pleaded guilty to a previous charge.
Chong, through his lawyer Krishnan Nadarajan, had explained that he was a national serviceman then and pleaded guilty as he felt the offence was a minor one and he wanted to save himself the hassle of going from his camp to court.
He said he had bought some alcoholic drinks from a nearby store and later drank in his father's car, parked near the family home. He had not driven the car but had merely slept in it with the engine turned off.
CJ Chan said the courts are prepared to review an earlier offence to help decide the degree of guilt for that offence.
He said that if Chong's story raised 'a question of reasonable doubt, then he ought to be entitled to that doubt'.
Chong's explanation showed his previous conviction was a weak antecedent to justify a jail term for the present case, said the judge.
Added to this, the high level of alcohol is in itself not enough to send a drink driver to jail in lieu of a fine, unless it is so high as to create a reasonable risk of the offender causing injury to people or damage to property on the road.
'It should be the risk of inflicting social costs on the public that should be the aggravating factor,' CJ Chan said.
This was not the case with Chong as the alcohol content found in him was moderate and did not impair his ability to drive, said CJ Chan, who made clear that each case must depend on its own facts.
In addition to the fine, Chong was also disqualified from driving for two years.
***
I remember being very amused by this article - as in the US, you don't need to be driving a car when drunk to be convicted of drunk driving.
CJ lifts jail term on drink driver
Straits Times, 1 April 2009
Man caught a second time escapes jail as, in his 1st conviction, he was drunk and asleep in parked car
ALMOST all drink drivers are jailed when caught a second time.
But the Chief Justice has lifted the jail term on one such offender, Chong Pit Khai, and fined him $5,000 instead, because he felt the circumstances for the 28-year-old's first offence in 2002 were rather different.
CJ Chan Sek Keong said in a written judgment on Monday that the law does not say jail is mandatory for repeat offenders like Chong, whose previous case had no precedent.
'In my view, using an imprisonment term for each and every case as a starting point is not necessarily desirable as a sentencing precedent. The present case shows why it is not desirable,' he said.
Chong's case was different because in his first offence, he was found drunk and asleep in a parked car by police.
Then, he was charged with being in possession of a car while under the influence of alcohol, while in the current case he was actually driving while drunk.
CJ Chan also noted that defendants do plead guilty 'especially for minor offences of which they may not be guilty for a variety of reasons'.
'This is a reality which the court should not close its eyes to or shy away from,' he said.
For this reason, a defendant is allowed to explain to the sentencing court why he pleaded guilty to a previous charge.
Chong, through his lawyer Krishnan Nadarajan, had explained that he was a national serviceman then and pleaded guilty as he felt the offence was a minor one and he wanted to save himself the hassle of going from his camp to court.
He said he had bought some alcoholic drinks from a nearby store and later drank in his father's car, parked near the family home. He had not driven the car but had merely slept in it with the engine turned off.
CJ Chan said the courts are prepared to review an earlier offence to help decide the degree of guilt for that offence.
He said that if Chong's story raised 'a question of reasonable doubt, then he ought to be entitled to that doubt'.
Chong's explanation showed his previous conviction was a weak antecedent to justify a jail term for the present case, said the judge.
Added to this, the high level of alcohol is in itself not enough to send a drink driver to jail in lieu of a fine, unless it is so high as to create a reasonable risk of the offender causing injury to people or damage to property on the road.
'It should be the risk of inflicting social costs on the public that should be the aggravating factor,' CJ Chan said.
This was not the case with Chong as the alcohol content found in him was moderate and did not impair his ability to drive, said CJ Chan, who made clear that each case must depend on its own facts.
In addition to the fine, Chong was also disqualified from driving for two years.
Reocities , rising from the ashes - RIP Geocities... - "Behind this minimalistic page stretches a wealth of Internet history. If any of it was yours and we have successfully recovered it, then we hope it makes you happy to see it restored.
We've rebuilt the walls to the Cities and the streets where a large part of the early settlers of the World Wide Web used to live in. You can still find them where they were before, but not all of the houses have been rebuilt yet... If you have a website that links to old GeoCities content, and we've managed to restore that content, we would like to ask you to change the links from geocities.com to reocities.com. It's just a one letter change and it will help the Internet to hang together that much better"
The History of Tennis, Part 1 - "Two kings lost their lives as a result of tennis: King Louis X of France (1314-16) and Charles VIII of France (1483-98). It is said that Louis X died of a chill immediately after playing an energetic game of jeu de paume at Château de Vincennes. Charles VIII died after striking his head on a horizontal piece of wood over the door which led to his tennis court."
The latter is worse than falling down a staircase.
How Shoe Obsession Disorder Can Boost Your Career - "“Contrary to popular belief, Cinderella's stepsisters were not desperate for Prince Charming -- they were desperate for her glass slipper. Unlike shopping for jeans (which is about as much fun as going to the gynecologist), shopping for shoes is an exhilarating experience. Feet don't have hips, feet don't have thighs. Feet are our friends."... “My grandpa said, ‘Whenever I compliment a woman on her shoes, she loves it, she just lights up…It's better than any line I know.’"... Want to bond with a female co-worker? Instead of asking her out to lunch (salad, dressing on the side, water with lime), ask if she’d like to go shoe shopping. Men, I’m not sure you should try that... As far as I’m concerned, high heels are instruments of self-torture, but Shea responds, “Heels may be uncomfortable, but they make you taller, which makes you confident.”"
Vulva Portrait Pendant mature by VulvaLoveLovely on Etsy - "Celebrate your own beauty. Each piece is an original, one of a kind hand sculpted image of its owner to remind her that regardless of what the world and the people in it may tell her: she is beautiful... If you are not comfortable sending pictures you also have to option of sending me a description of your Yoni."
West Aceh to Ban 'Tight' Trousers, Shorts - "“If people disagree, don’t be mad at me — be angry at God, because what I impose is religious law... In the afterlife, I will be asked by God, what have I done for the people of West Aceh during my term in office. What I am doing now is enforcing thorough Islamic law”... executive director of the Women’s Partnership forum (MISPI) in Aceh... [said] “Other regions in Indonesia want to see Shariah succeed in Aceh, but since it was put in effect in 2001, all we seem to be dealing with is women’s clothing... There is a tendency to view Islamic law from just a very narrow perspective. Just look at the bathrooms at government offices in Aceh. Do they reflect Islamic values, since many of them are dirty and the water sometimes doesn’t run? And that’s just one example"... Syarifah suggested that before imposing the regulation, West Aceh take measures to support the implementation of Shariah that does not merely focus on the punitive aspects... “Many of his people still live below the poverty line; he should give his priority to people’s welfare because that is an important issue endorsed by Islam.”"
Arnold to SF: Fuck You - "Well, maybe Arnold is still mad at being told to "kiss my gay ass", but this is a rather puerile way for the governor of California to be spending his time."
Don’t speak English? In Texas, that’s a crime - "Since their chief’s public apology, Dallas police uncovered more than 20 officers who had written tickets to drivers for not speaking English."
Yahoo! Answers - Why are people against racial profiling? - "People seem happy to accept racial profiling when they're stopping Young White Males suspected of being football hooligans, and why not that's what 99% of Football Hooligans are going to be. Its only offensive when its a crime that an ethnic minority may be more likley to commit."
China parents lynch book salesman - "A mob of parents have killed a book salesman and badly injured four of his colleagues after rumours spread that the men were a human smuggling ring... As gossip spread that a gang was trying to ensnare the young pupils, parents surrounded and set upon the men"
Saying children are threatened - whether by homosexuals, child sex predators or fast food companies - is a great away to mobilise people
McDonald's to close in Iceland for higher cost - "The reason is the rising cost of imported supplies following the collapse of the Icelandic krona"
Anti-globalisation people will be happy
Just deserts - "That which is deserved. A reward for what has been done - good or bad"
Turns out we all spell it wrong in SG
Dissolving Bikini is the Ultimate Revenge Gift - "The sexy swimsuit disappears by dissolving in water, leaving a woman completely nude and embarrassed... Named the "Get Naked Bikini," the item is being marketed as the ultimate form of revenge for recently-dumped dudes. The bikini has upset women's rights groups, with one campaigner, Rosmarie Zapfl, saying, “It is an absolute insult to women that this has been invented.” It sounds like Ms. Zapfl needs a gift to calm her down. May we suggest a new bikini?"
Another video
Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women | The Onion - "Women Deserve Better says PETA abuses defenseless, simple-minded women by forcing them to remove their clothes and participate in humiliating publicity stunts...
"Is it really worth it to spend so much time protecting these basically clueless women? They might not even comprehend what's happening to them" "Once you see the torture a PETA volunteer lives with everyday, how can you not help them? Some are fed nothing but lentils and nutdogs before performing on the Howard Stern show. Coached to talk about how vegans' vaginas taste better than meat eaters'... we're starting a new program to... recapture abused women and take them to a farm where they can live out their lives in peace""
Viagra or Jellyfish? - "Thanks or no thanks (whichever way you want to look at it) to the Irukandji Syndrome that comes as a result of jellyfish stinging, a man achieves a prolonged erection that is said to rival the effects of Viagra. However, such erection comes with severe pain which would probably erase any sexual ideas a man may have. While jellyfish stinging can do wonders for males who have a hard time achieving and maintaining an erection, it can also result to severe cerebral hemorrhaging and blood pressure increase which be fatal. It can also lead to cramps, breathing difficulties, cardiac problems and vomiting. These medical conditions may be too much of a trade-off just so one can get an erection."
We've rebuilt the walls to the Cities and the streets where a large part of the early settlers of the World Wide Web used to live in. You can still find them where they were before, but not all of the houses have been rebuilt yet... If you have a website that links to old GeoCities content, and we've managed to restore that content, we would like to ask you to change the links from geocities.com to reocities.com. It's just a one letter change and it will help the Internet to hang together that much better"
The History of Tennis, Part 1 - "Two kings lost their lives as a result of tennis: King Louis X of France (1314-16) and Charles VIII of France (1483-98). It is said that Louis X died of a chill immediately after playing an energetic game of jeu de paume at Château de Vincennes. Charles VIII died after striking his head on a horizontal piece of wood over the door which led to his tennis court."
The latter is worse than falling down a staircase.
How Shoe Obsession Disorder Can Boost Your Career - "“Contrary to popular belief, Cinderella's stepsisters were not desperate for Prince Charming -- they were desperate for her glass slipper. Unlike shopping for jeans (which is about as much fun as going to the gynecologist), shopping for shoes is an exhilarating experience. Feet don't have hips, feet don't have thighs. Feet are our friends."... “My grandpa said, ‘Whenever I compliment a woman on her shoes, she loves it, she just lights up…It's better than any line I know.’"... Want to bond with a female co-worker? Instead of asking her out to lunch (salad, dressing on the side, water with lime), ask if she’d like to go shoe shopping. Men, I’m not sure you should try that... As far as I’m concerned, high heels are instruments of self-torture, but Shea responds, “Heels may be uncomfortable, but they make you taller, which makes you confident.”"
Vulva Portrait Pendant mature by VulvaLoveLovely on Etsy - "Celebrate your own beauty. Each piece is an original, one of a kind hand sculpted image of its owner to remind her that regardless of what the world and the people in it may tell her: she is beautiful... If you are not comfortable sending pictures you also have to option of sending me a description of your Yoni."
West Aceh to Ban 'Tight' Trousers, Shorts - "“If people disagree, don’t be mad at me — be angry at God, because what I impose is religious law... In the afterlife, I will be asked by God, what have I done for the people of West Aceh during my term in office. What I am doing now is enforcing thorough Islamic law”... executive director of the Women’s Partnership forum (MISPI) in Aceh... [said] “Other regions in Indonesia want to see Shariah succeed in Aceh, but since it was put in effect in 2001, all we seem to be dealing with is women’s clothing... There is a tendency to view Islamic law from just a very narrow perspective. Just look at the bathrooms at government offices in Aceh. Do they reflect Islamic values, since many of them are dirty and the water sometimes doesn’t run? And that’s just one example"... Syarifah suggested that before imposing the regulation, West Aceh take measures to support the implementation of Shariah that does not merely focus on the punitive aspects... “Many of his people still live below the poverty line; he should give his priority to people’s welfare because that is an important issue endorsed by Islam.”"
Arnold to SF: Fuck You - "Well, maybe Arnold is still mad at being told to "kiss my gay ass", but this is a rather puerile way for the governor of California to be spending his time."
Don’t speak English? In Texas, that’s a crime - "Since their chief’s public apology, Dallas police uncovered more than 20 officers who had written tickets to drivers for not speaking English."
Yahoo! Answers - Why are people against racial profiling? - "People seem happy to accept racial profiling when they're stopping Young White Males suspected of being football hooligans, and why not that's what 99% of Football Hooligans are going to be. Its only offensive when its a crime that an ethnic minority may be more likley to commit."
China parents lynch book salesman - "A mob of parents have killed a book salesman and badly injured four of his colleagues after rumours spread that the men were a human smuggling ring... As gossip spread that a gang was trying to ensnare the young pupils, parents surrounded and set upon the men"
Saying children are threatened - whether by homosexuals, child sex predators or fast food companies - is a great away to mobilise people
McDonald's to close in Iceland for higher cost - "The reason is the rising cost of imported supplies following the collapse of the Icelandic krona"
Anti-globalisation people will be happy
Just deserts - "That which is deserved. A reward for what has been done - good or bad"
Turns out we all spell it wrong in SG
Dissolving Bikini is the Ultimate Revenge Gift - "The sexy swimsuit disappears by dissolving in water, leaving a woman completely nude and embarrassed... Named the "Get Naked Bikini," the item is being marketed as the ultimate form of revenge for recently-dumped dudes. The bikini has upset women's rights groups, with one campaigner, Rosmarie Zapfl, saying, “It is an absolute insult to women that this has been invented.” It sounds like Ms. Zapfl needs a gift to calm her down. May we suggest a new bikini?"
Another video
Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment Of Women | The Onion - "Women Deserve Better says PETA abuses defenseless, simple-minded women by forcing them to remove their clothes and participate in humiliating publicity stunts...
"Is it really worth it to spend so much time protecting these basically clueless women? They might not even comprehend what's happening to them" "Once you see the torture a PETA volunteer lives with everyday, how can you not help them? Some are fed nothing but lentils and nutdogs before performing on the Howard Stern show. Coached to talk about how vegans' vaginas taste better than meat eaters'... we're starting a new program to... recapture abused women and take them to a farm where they can live out their lives in peace""
Viagra or Jellyfish? - "Thanks or no thanks (whichever way you want to look at it) to the Irukandji Syndrome that comes as a result of jellyfish stinging, a man achieves a prolonged erection that is said to rival the effects of Viagra. However, such erection comes with severe pain which would probably erase any sexual ideas a man may have. While jellyfish stinging can do wonders for males who have a hard time achieving and maintaining an erection, it can also result to severe cerebral hemorrhaging and blood pressure increase which be fatal. It can also lead to cramps, breathing difficulties, cardiac problems and vomiting. These medical conditions may be too much of a trade-off just so one can get an erection."
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations." - Sir Winston Churchill
***
Who’s afraid of the avant-garde?
"The writer Joe Queenan caused a minor rumpus in the austere world of contemporary classical music last year by complaining about how painful much of it is. He called Berio’s Sinfonia (1968) “35 minutes of non-stop torture,” Stockhausen’s Kontra-Punkte (1953) like “a cat running up and down the piano” and Birtwistle’s latest opera The Minotaur “funereal caterwauling.” “A hundred years after Schoenberg,” he wrote, “the public still doesn’t like anything after Transfigured Night, and even that is a stretch.”
Inevitably, Queenan was lambasted as a reactionary philistine...
His comments were denounced as the same old clichés. Yet clichés become clichés for a reason... Stockhausen and Penderecki, whose works are now as old as “Rock Around the Clock,” have not been assimilated into the classical canon in the way that Ravel and Stravinsky have...
Theodor Adorno, perhaps the 20th century’s most renowned social theorist, was a passionate advocate of Schoenberg’s atonal modernism for political reasons: tonality, he declared, was the bastion of bourgeois complacency. Following Adorno’s lead, the hardline musical modernists of the 1950s and 1960s treated any hint of tonality as a form of recidivism to be denounced with Maoist vigour; Pierre Boulez refused for a time even to speak to tonal composers. The American composer Milton Babbitt’s 1958 essay “Who Cares if You Listen?” responded to the wider world’s hostility towards this new music by arguing that serious composers should simply withdraw from the concert hall, while offering no explanation for the public’s antipathy to “difficult” music beyond a belief that they were too ill-informed to understand it...
It takes no more cognitive effort to “see” a painting by Mark Rothko than it does to look at wallpaper. The fact we can see the painting at all as a coherent object gives our interpretive mind something to work on, even if we come up with nothing more than a vague sense of beauty, serenity or absurdity. Music can defy even this basic sort of cognitive parsing: it can refute our efforts to find coherence, rather as if a video artist were to present us with unstructured static. Even Jackson Pollock’s chaos is contained—but sound is at once everywhere and constantly shifting.
Many musicologists accept a definition of music as “organised sound.” Yet sound is structured into music not on paper, nor even in the mind of the composer, but in the mind of the listener... There are some universal principles that come into play in differentiating music from mere noise. For example, melodies that move in small steps tend to sound unified and “good,” while ones with large and frequent jumps between high and low notes are liable to seem fragmented and harder to make out. Regular rhythms also contribute to coherence, while erratic ones often confuse us. Tonality creates a hierarchy of pitch and a sense of “place” in the musical scale. But it’s not just tonal music that uses these cognitive aids: they are found in other musical traditions the world over...
In Boulez’s Structures I or Stockhausen’s Klavierstück VII, say, there is no discernible rhythm, and the melody line, if one can call it that, is as jagged as the Dolomites. In this situation, it is hard to develop any expectations about the music...
This is not to say that atonality in general, and serialism in particular, is doomed to sound aimless and incomprehensible. There are plenty of other parameters that a composer can deploy to create coherent structures, and many have done so to great effect. But, increasingly, serial techniques were applied not just to pitch but to these other musical parameters, such as rhythm and dynamics. Such compositional methods progressively and systematically subverted any means of providing audible organisation. So it was unsurprising that audiences found the music harder to understand. For the serialist’s rules are not ones that can be heard. Boulez’s serial piece Le Marteau Sans Maître was acclaimed when premièred in 1955, but it took over two decades for anyone else to figure out how it was serial: no one could deduce analytically, let alone hear, the organisational structure.
Music, like any art, must be constantly rejuvenated by experiment. But “experimental” music surely only qualifies as such if it includes the possibility of failure. And if musical composition takes no account of cognition—denies that cognition has a role to play, or actively frustrates it—then composers cannot complain when their music is unloved...
If music is not acknowledged as a mental process, sound is all that remains."
***
Who’s afraid of the avant-garde?
"The writer Joe Queenan caused a minor rumpus in the austere world of contemporary classical music last year by complaining about how painful much of it is. He called Berio’s Sinfonia (1968) “35 minutes of non-stop torture,” Stockhausen’s Kontra-Punkte (1953) like “a cat running up and down the piano” and Birtwistle’s latest opera The Minotaur “funereal caterwauling.” “A hundred years after Schoenberg,” he wrote, “the public still doesn’t like anything after Transfigured Night, and even that is a stretch.”
Inevitably, Queenan was lambasted as a reactionary philistine...
His comments were denounced as the same old clichés. Yet clichés become clichés for a reason... Stockhausen and Penderecki, whose works are now as old as “Rock Around the Clock,” have not been assimilated into the classical canon in the way that Ravel and Stravinsky have...
Theodor Adorno, perhaps the 20th century’s most renowned social theorist, was a passionate advocate of Schoenberg’s atonal modernism for political reasons: tonality, he declared, was the bastion of bourgeois complacency. Following Adorno’s lead, the hardline musical modernists of the 1950s and 1960s treated any hint of tonality as a form of recidivism to be denounced with Maoist vigour; Pierre Boulez refused for a time even to speak to tonal composers. The American composer Milton Babbitt’s 1958 essay “Who Cares if You Listen?” responded to the wider world’s hostility towards this new music by arguing that serious composers should simply withdraw from the concert hall, while offering no explanation for the public’s antipathy to “difficult” music beyond a belief that they were too ill-informed to understand it...
It takes no more cognitive effort to “see” a painting by Mark Rothko than it does to look at wallpaper. The fact we can see the painting at all as a coherent object gives our interpretive mind something to work on, even if we come up with nothing more than a vague sense of beauty, serenity or absurdity. Music can defy even this basic sort of cognitive parsing: it can refute our efforts to find coherence, rather as if a video artist were to present us with unstructured static. Even Jackson Pollock’s chaos is contained—but sound is at once everywhere and constantly shifting.
Many musicologists accept a definition of music as “organised sound.” Yet sound is structured into music not on paper, nor even in the mind of the composer, but in the mind of the listener... There are some universal principles that come into play in differentiating music from mere noise. For example, melodies that move in small steps tend to sound unified and “good,” while ones with large and frequent jumps between high and low notes are liable to seem fragmented and harder to make out. Regular rhythms also contribute to coherence, while erratic ones often confuse us. Tonality creates a hierarchy of pitch and a sense of “place” in the musical scale. But it’s not just tonal music that uses these cognitive aids: they are found in other musical traditions the world over...
In Boulez’s Structures I or Stockhausen’s Klavierstück VII, say, there is no discernible rhythm, and the melody line, if one can call it that, is as jagged as the Dolomites. In this situation, it is hard to develop any expectations about the music...
This is not to say that atonality in general, and serialism in particular, is doomed to sound aimless and incomprehensible. There are plenty of other parameters that a composer can deploy to create coherent structures, and many have done so to great effect. But, increasingly, serial techniques were applied not just to pitch but to these other musical parameters, such as rhythm and dynamics. Such compositional methods progressively and systematically subverted any means of providing audible organisation. So it was unsurprising that audiences found the music harder to understand. For the serialist’s rules are not ones that can be heard. Boulez’s serial piece Le Marteau Sans Maître was acclaimed when premièred in 1955, but it took over two decades for anyone else to figure out how it was serial: no one could deduce analytically, let alone hear, the organisational structure.
Music, like any art, must be constantly rejuvenated by experiment. But “experimental” music surely only qualifies as such if it includes the possibility of failure. And if musical composition takes no account of cognition—denies that cognition has a role to play, or actively frustrates it—then composers cannot complain when their music is unloved...
If music is not acknowledged as a mental process, sound is all that remains."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Mozart Requiem Tuba Mirum Blooper
I was trying to locate the Mozart Tuba Mirum which Frigid Girl called "that fucked up version that you let me hear".
All was to no avail, till I remembered that I found it by searching for Florence Foster Jenkins (and not, as I thought, the Portsmouth Sinfonia).
So, from File audio - Brass Playing Mishaps (I'm not as 1337 as I used to be, so I didn't manage to convert the file - get the original for slightly less-bad quality):
"Ecco una serie di File audio "umoristici", rigorosamente anonimi, che circolano come allegati alle E-Mail o che si trovano su siti Internet.
Se avete un file che non è nella lista siete pregati di spedirmelo come allegato ad una E-Mail.
Tuba Mirum Blooper - Mozart
Mozart - Tuba mirum dal Requiem (Formato file: Real Audio)"
It's not as bad as I remember, but we take what we can get.
All was to no avail, till I remembered that I found it by searching for Florence Foster Jenkins (and not, as I thought, the Portsmouth Sinfonia).
So, from File audio - Brass Playing Mishaps (I'm not as 1337 as I used to be, so I didn't manage to convert the file - get the original for slightly less-bad quality):
"Ecco una serie di File audio "umoristici", rigorosamente anonimi, che circolano come allegati alle E-Mail o che si trovano su siti Internet.
Se avete un file che non è nella lista siete pregati di spedirmelo come allegato ad una E-Mail.
Tuba Mirum Blooper - Mozart
Mozart - Tuba mirum dal Requiem (Formato file: Real Audio)"
It's not as bad as I remember, but we take what we can get.
2024 May 27 update:
imeem no longer works, but luckily the original website still does.
I have converted the file to MP3 once again and am hosting it on 4shared (I have 2012 files on there so hopefully it stays up - as long as I don't miss the reminders to login or have my account wiped)
Mozart - Requiem - Tuba Mirum Blooper.mp3
Sadly, I was unable to convert such a short clip to video with Voice2V Express, so I can't put it on YouTube.
"The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'." - Phillip Lopate
***
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***
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longhairgirl coupon code - "LongHairGirl stock 5000+ products for your hair decoration". What about boys?
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huan zhu gege script english translation - Good luck.
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"girl on operating table" - This is a part in the movie "Strange Things Happen at Sundown"
huge busty strapon misery
algaroth rjc pens - I didn't know they gave pens for it. Unless they've reused Orientation names (then again, there're only so many pseudo-mystical names they can use)
TM Peace Palace - TM = Transcendental Meditation. Gah.
chua hock hin and nude - He's famous (he's the guy fined for being naked in his own home).
Nervous tick manifests masterbation
sex bondage with soya sauce
rjc upskirt techbot - There's a story behind this.
sheares hall supper halal?
Tomoko Singapure porn
Google site search:
RJC blowjob
kor kor
Crucifix model
DiKar
"to canada"
female beauty
COLETTE AKA BETTY
الملاذ الغامض - This is translated as "mysterious sanctuary"
AboodyMoon
cleavage singapore airlines
Girl taking the World's largest dildo
rationalism comment
emma watson in a swimsuit going nude
sex trade + apes - Bestiality?
gayspace greek beach
Image search:
Mensch holocaust 'Man, get that dog!
feel good pussy
pussy licking motivational poster
fat female masterbation
slim mature japanese women - The corollary is that usually the mature ones are not slim.
visible blowjob - Are invisible ones possible? This got the Dance of the Four Seasons.
man's shoe crash
people being stripers by humping a pole
brugel erect penis
pussy binocular vision
naughty deer beastiality
indonesian young schoolgirl (smu)
Horse anal xxx - The horse or the human?
chinese muscle boy
sex can wait masturbate - Technical Virgin?
un discreet cosplay anal
north korea tank markings
production of biofuel from tolite paper
gay men fully naked showering with boners - That would be awkward.
antique bra
burning spear slavery days
longest hairey lega in the world
perfection apricot tree - This got Apricot perfection
candid camera vagina toilet women
six flags asian guy
cock nugget - This got bearsex
masturbation 101 (tutorial) - This got the biscuit man in Hokkaido
turkish party theme
opulent affluent wasteful living - This got the Chatterbox renovation
Kotex New Freedom feminine pads - This got Steven Lim in the New Paper
conference table power socket india
Go-on Silver and gaowhite - Got Slash ah?
effects of technology on women - This got the boob job before picture.
shop short skirt dildo
a girl doing a science experiment - Presumably not involving a test tube.
bicycle shorts girl sex
couple in love
zoophilia gay - I thought it was dangerous to let a male animal mount you. Unless the person wants to be the top.
pamplets malaysia boleh
pale japanese women - Isn't that most of them?
san quentin prison cafeteria wall
il dept natural resource statutes involving wild deer - This got a deer nosing through a Nara shop.
tomato fight spain topless
minister masterbate - This got Lee Kuan Yew.
kitty young bukkake
cold room door's limit switch
virgin clit - This got QiQi. Is there a difference after devirgination?
costume for fat guys
weed killer advertise ment that secreatly spells sex
Guy can rip girl clothes
steven lim's penis - Presumably it's plucked also.
hook Suspension breast
emma armpit wet
breast implants' serial numbers
torrents breast milk
cối xay gió - This is "Windmill" in Vietnamese.
scoffolding jop supervisor wanded
singapore negative space
demotivational poster about masterbating near sleeping girls thread advice
secret semen sauce
roadside walls in india
From a Revolutionary Opera:
Mieux vaut mourir que rester misérable!
Pour un esclave est-il quelque danger?
Tombe le joug qui nous accable.
Et sous nos coups périsse l'étranger!
--- La Muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici) / Masaniello
Translated into English as:
"A slave knows no danger, as death is better than living in chains"
Ensuite:
"The specators applause and runs out of the theatre, carrying revolutionary slogans. The pedestrians join them in destroying symbols of Dutch authorities. They capture the city with almost no resistance. If you don't believe, that a night at the opera might cause a revolution, don't forget that this was a period of Romanticism... and
it's out of topic, but I can tell you, that an opera caused also serious riots in Poland in March of 1968..."
Mieux vaut mourir que rester misérable!
Pour un esclave est-il quelque danger?
Tombe le joug qui nous accable.
Et sous nos coups périsse l'étranger!
--- La Muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici) / Masaniello
Translated into English as:
"A slave knows no danger, as death is better than living in chains"
Ensuite:
"The specators applause and runs out of the theatre, carrying revolutionary slogans. The pedestrians join them in destroying symbols of Dutch authorities. They capture the city with almost no resistance. If you don't believe, that a night at the opera might cause a revolution, don't forget that this was a period of Romanticism... and
it's out of topic, but I can tell you, that an opera caused also serious riots in Poland in March of 1968..."
"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable." - Fran Lebowitz
***
Altered Sexual Orientation Following Dominant Hemisphere Infract - "The patient became aware of his homosexual orientation in his early teens and had several gay partners... The patient started complaining of his changed personality and heterosexual orientation 6 months after his second stroke. At the same time he complained of excessive mood swings and changed interests. He became preoccupied with photography and had a successful photographic exhibition a year after his second stroke. His sexual orientation remained heterosexual 4 years following the second stroke, and he preferred to describe himself as bisexual because of his previous homosexual orientation."
'Flammable' bras hold back Swedish female conscripts - "The lack of combat-ready underwear for Sweden’s women in uniform has been a continuing sore point for the Swedish Conscription Council (Värnplikstrådet)... The women complained that the bras’ fasteners have a tendency to come undone when the women performed rigorous exercise, forcing the female soldiers to take off all of their equipment in order to refasten the brassieres. In addition, the bras aren’t flame resistant and, once lit, can melt onto conscripts’ skin"
Study: Women Are in Charge at Home - "Wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions... “Most of the research literature in psychology has suggested that women have less power,” Vogel told LiveScience. “They have largely based that on the fact that traditionally men earn more money and so therefore would have the ability to make big decisions in the relationship.”... Wives were more demanding—asking for changes in the relationship or in their partner—and were more likely to get their way than the husbands. This held regardless of who had chosen the issue."
Friends, lovers or fuddies? - "Friends with benefits (FWB) may not have quite yet become a norm for Malaysians but it seems to be gaining acceptance... There could be many reasons why FWB, also known as fuddies (f***buddies) has become a facet of modern life, including heavy workload and not having enough patience to work on relationships... Leia, (not her real name) has never had what society deems to be a 'relationship'. Instead, for the past eight years, the 20-something year old has had 'friends with benefits' (FWB). 'I don't know how to maintain a relationship. All I want is to have the physical part of it,' she says... While she does not reveal the number of FWB that she has or has had, Leia says most times, she calls up one after getting lonely following a night out with her girlfriends. 'You know those times when you have to have it? I send out a 'memo' and see who bites.'... 'Nowadays. if I want a session, I go and get one. And head home or stay the night after it. Instead of wasting time on dinner or a movie. It's just bang, bang, bang and go home'... Leon, 31, (not his real name) decided to have a fuddy after deciding that regular relationships were too emotionally draining and painful... Loen who has been having had a fuddy for about a year, says that the advantage is that it is less taxing and stressful. 'Often, you end up having more fun and are more relaxed because you don't have the level of expectation which comes with a regular relationship'"
Amusing article related to this: "Meals: Acceptable FWB dining situations include shared bowls of cocktail peanuts, late-night grilled cheese sandwiches, and fancy desserts. Meals to be avoided are breakfast, brunch, dinner, with a special get-out-of-jail free card for lunch.... Questions any more probing than "what are you wearing?" and "when can we meet?" can get a little sticky. Your FWB doesn't want to hear about your crazy mom and you really don't want him to start yapping about his Ayn Rand fixation. Keep it light, keep it moving."
Giada’s Butterflied Pork Chops Look Like… Something Else
Comment: "I hope she didn’t stuff that with sausage."
MFTTW: "nice breasts". that's what everyone says
SDP calls off planned talk at Fajar after permit was rejected by police (again) - "The Singapore police has usually rejected applications by the opposition parties to hold public talks and events while those by the ruling party are always given the approval. In 2007, the Workers’ Party’s application to organize a cycling trip for its members at East Coast Park was rejected by the police on the grounds of “security concerns”. However, another PAP event was allowed to be held a week later which was graced by the Prime Minister himself. In 2008, 18 SDP members and activists were charged for holding an illegal procession outside Parliament House against rising cost of living while hundreds of members of CASE led by a PAP MP was able to host a protest against “junk food” a day earlier. The double standards practiced by the police and the criminalization of legitimate political activity is detrimental to the growth of the opposition as well as the civil society in Singapore... If the Singapore police cannot even handle a public forum with less than a hundred spectators, how can we expect it to take charge of major events like the upcoming APEC summit meetings?"
For once I find nothing to object to in a Temasek Review article.
Public holidays: How Singapore compares - "Singapore and its citizens are known to top the world in all sorts of rankings, from free trade and port facilities to education. But when it comes to public holidays, the Republic comes in below average. Singapore has 11 days of gazetted public holidays annually to celebrate various national and religious events. A check of 195 countries and 50 regions found that most places have as many or more breaks. Just 51 countries and regions have fewer public holidays... If annual leave is factored in, the difference in time off work widens... some of the world’s richest countries, such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark, mandate 25 days of annual leave. Australia and New Zealand dictate 20 days, Germany 24 and France 30. In Singapore, those with 14 or fewer days of annual leave accounted for nearly three out of five full-time employees last year, MOM statistics show. Under one in 10 had more than 21 days, while the remainder had between 15 and 21 days"
Really? - The Claim - Cold Temperatures Improve Sleep - Question - "Studies have found that in general, the optimal temperature for sleep is quite cool, around 60 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. For some, temperatures that fall too far below or above this range can lead to restlessness."
That's 15.6-20 degrees celsius. No wonder Singapore makes me sick
Bra Power - Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas - "Use the breasts themselves as a power source. The idea is apparently feasible: a bra made of fabric interwoven with tiny wires can produce electricity from the bosom's natural bouncing motion throughout the day, enough to power a cell phone or an iPod. The larger the cup size, the more energy produced."
***
Altered Sexual Orientation Following Dominant Hemisphere Infract - "The patient became aware of his homosexual orientation in his early teens and had several gay partners... The patient started complaining of his changed personality and heterosexual orientation 6 months after his second stroke. At the same time he complained of excessive mood swings and changed interests. He became preoccupied with photography and had a successful photographic exhibition a year after his second stroke. His sexual orientation remained heterosexual 4 years following the second stroke, and he preferred to describe himself as bisexual because of his previous homosexual orientation."
'Flammable' bras hold back Swedish female conscripts - "The lack of combat-ready underwear for Sweden’s women in uniform has been a continuing sore point for the Swedish Conscription Council (Värnplikstrådet)... The women complained that the bras’ fasteners have a tendency to come undone when the women performed rigorous exercise, forcing the female soldiers to take off all of their equipment in order to refasten the brassieres. In addition, the bras aren’t flame resistant and, once lit, can melt onto conscripts’ skin"
Study: Women Are in Charge at Home - "Wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions... “Most of the research literature in psychology has suggested that women have less power,” Vogel told LiveScience. “They have largely based that on the fact that traditionally men earn more money and so therefore would have the ability to make big decisions in the relationship.”... Wives were more demanding—asking for changes in the relationship or in their partner—and were more likely to get their way than the husbands. This held regardless of who had chosen the issue."
Friends, lovers or fuddies? - "Friends with benefits (FWB) may not have quite yet become a norm for Malaysians but it seems to be gaining acceptance... There could be many reasons why FWB, also known as fuddies (f***buddies) has become a facet of modern life, including heavy workload and not having enough patience to work on relationships... Leia, (not her real name) has never had what society deems to be a 'relationship'. Instead, for the past eight years, the 20-something year old has had 'friends with benefits' (FWB). 'I don't know how to maintain a relationship. All I want is to have the physical part of it,' she says... While she does not reveal the number of FWB that she has or has had, Leia says most times, she calls up one after getting lonely following a night out with her girlfriends. 'You know those times when you have to have it? I send out a 'memo' and see who bites.'... 'Nowadays. if I want a session, I go and get one. And head home or stay the night after it. Instead of wasting time on dinner or a movie. It's just bang, bang, bang and go home'... Leon, 31, (not his real name) decided to have a fuddy after deciding that regular relationships were too emotionally draining and painful... Loen who has been having had a fuddy for about a year, says that the advantage is that it is less taxing and stressful. 'Often, you end up having more fun and are more relaxed because you don't have the level of expectation which comes with a regular relationship'"
Amusing article related to this: "Meals: Acceptable FWB dining situations include shared bowls of cocktail peanuts, late-night grilled cheese sandwiches, and fancy desserts. Meals to be avoided are breakfast, brunch, dinner, with a special get-out-of-jail free card for lunch.... Questions any more probing than "what are you wearing?" and "when can we meet?" can get a little sticky. Your FWB doesn't want to hear about your crazy mom and you really don't want him to start yapping about his Ayn Rand fixation. Keep it light, keep it moving."
Giada’s Butterflied Pork Chops Look Like… Something Else
Comment: "I hope she didn’t stuff that with sausage."
MFTTW: "nice breasts". that's what everyone says
SDP calls off planned talk at Fajar after permit was rejected by police (again) - "The Singapore police has usually rejected applications by the opposition parties to hold public talks and events while those by the ruling party are always given the approval. In 2007, the Workers’ Party’s application to organize a cycling trip for its members at East Coast Park was rejected by the police on the grounds of “security concerns”. However, another PAP event was allowed to be held a week later which was graced by the Prime Minister himself. In 2008, 18 SDP members and activists were charged for holding an illegal procession outside Parliament House against rising cost of living while hundreds of members of CASE led by a PAP MP was able to host a protest against “junk food” a day earlier. The double standards practiced by the police and the criminalization of legitimate political activity is detrimental to the growth of the opposition as well as the civil society in Singapore... If the Singapore police cannot even handle a public forum with less than a hundred spectators, how can we expect it to take charge of major events like the upcoming APEC summit meetings?"
For once I find nothing to object to in a Temasek Review article.
Public holidays: How Singapore compares - "Singapore and its citizens are known to top the world in all sorts of rankings, from free trade and port facilities to education. But when it comes to public holidays, the Republic comes in below average. Singapore has 11 days of gazetted public holidays annually to celebrate various national and religious events. A check of 195 countries and 50 regions found that most places have as many or more breaks. Just 51 countries and regions have fewer public holidays... If annual leave is factored in, the difference in time off work widens... some of the world’s richest countries, such as Finland, Sweden and Denmark, mandate 25 days of annual leave. Australia and New Zealand dictate 20 days, Germany 24 and France 30. In Singapore, those with 14 or fewer days of annual leave accounted for nearly three out of five full-time employees last year, MOM statistics show. Under one in 10 had more than 21 days, while the remainder had between 15 and 21 days"
Really? - The Claim - Cold Temperatures Improve Sleep - Question - "Studies have found that in general, the optimal temperature for sleep is quite cool, around 60 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. For some, temperatures that fall too far below or above this range can lead to restlessness."
That's 15.6-20 degrees celsius. No wonder Singapore makes me sick
Bra Power - Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas - "Use the breasts themselves as a power source. The idea is apparently feasible: a bra made of fabric interwoven with tiny wires can produce electricity from the bosom's natural bouncing motion throughout the day, enough to power a cell phone or an iPod. The larger the cup size, the more energy produced."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"Silence is the virtue of fools." - Sir Francis Bacon
***
This is the probable reason why we have SDU (now SDN), and why China might collapse in the next 2-3 decades:
"I loved my wife dearly, and her death caused me to vow that I would never marry again; I have kept my word. See how things have turned out: had I not been widowed perhaps my life would have been different; I would not be General Bolívar, nor the Liberator... when I arrived in Caracas from Europe with my bride in 1801 [1802], let me say at once that my mind was filled only with the emotions of passionate love and not with political ideas, for these had not yet taken hold of my imagination. When my wife died and I was left desolate from that premature and unexpected loss, I returned to Spain, and from Madrid I went to France and then to Italy. It was then that I began to take an interest in public affairs, politics began to concern me, and I followed the different changes then emerging... Without the death my wife I would not have made my second journey to Europe, and it is probable that the ideas I acquired on my travels would not have taken root in Caracas or San Mateo, nor would I have gained in America the experience and knowledge of the world, of men, and of things that have been so valuable to me in the course of my political career. The death of my wife propelled me early on the road to politics."
--- Simon Bolivar. Quoted in Simon Bolivar: A Life / John Lynch
***
This is the probable reason why we have SDU (now SDN), and why China might collapse in the next 2-3 decades:
"I loved my wife dearly, and her death caused me to vow that I would never marry again; I have kept my word. See how things have turned out: had I not been widowed perhaps my life would have been different; I would not be General Bolívar, nor the Liberator... when I arrived in Caracas from Europe with my bride in 1801 [1802], let me say at once that my mind was filled only with the emotions of passionate love and not with political ideas, for these had not yet taken hold of my imagination. When my wife died and I was left desolate from that premature and unexpected loss, I returned to Spain, and from Madrid I went to France and then to Italy. It was then that I began to take an interest in public affairs, politics began to concern me, and I followed the different changes then emerging... Without the death my wife I would not have made my second journey to Europe, and it is probable that the ideas I acquired on my travels would not have taken root in Caracas or San Mateo, nor would I have gained in America the experience and knowledge of the world, of men, and of things that have been so valuable to me in the course of my political career. The death of my wife propelled me early on the road to politics."
--- Simon Bolivar. Quoted in Simon Bolivar: A Life / John Lynch
"The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else." - John Blake
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'How about a hug hug?'
- 'Way too loose'
- 'FOR YOU splendid smile *one smiling lip*'
- [RGS T-shirt] Front: 'Feed me *picture of banana' Back: 'Just don't feed the monkeys'
- 'Free parking *picture from Monopoly*'
- 'I wish that I could walk right up to you' (40+ year old auntie)
- 'Boys need a g*something* to do' (This probably read 'Boys need a girl to do')
- 'Pilipinas wear your pride' (at first I read 'price')
- 'Feel so good'
- 'I ♥ u' (hidden in a listing of the alphabet from A-Z)
- 'Your boyfriend is staring'
- 'How can I miss you if you won't go away?'
- '*picture of cat* Why are you so lazy?'
- 'Pass me a move in gym class'
- 'Hate to *something* me go'
- '*Heart* Special sweeties just for you'
- ''I *recycle sign* boys'
- 'Today special'
- 'Recycle everything you can except boyfriends;
- 'Addicted t*picture of lips* you'
- 'Chevy is for *cross* lovers'
- 'Don't let me cry'
- 'Cherry 7-up'
- 'Born to love him *picture of blond emerging with shell fragments on his head*' (maybe this is a Taoist Pan Gu T-shirt)
- 'This is why I'm hot'
- 'You make my heart RACE!'
- 'Cutie'
- 'I'm too cute for you' (11 year old)
- 'Play with fire'
- 'Gonna bone'
- 'I ♥ Sailors' (the heart had Popeye inside)
Guy:
- 'Ladies love long-boards' (not thick ones?)
- 'Your money is my money. My money is my money'
- 'Whatever happens in Bermuda stays in Bermuda' (because it's so ulu word would never get out)
- [Contributed] 'Boys are a good source of protein'
I don't see the point of wearing a spaghetti strap top - which is really a spaghetti dress which ends at the butt - over a translucent long-sleeved top, with a tudung over it all.
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'How about a hug hug?'
- 'Way too loose'
- 'FOR YOU splendid smile *one smiling lip*'
- [RGS T-shirt] Front: 'Feed me *picture of banana' Back: 'Just don't feed the monkeys'
- 'Free parking *picture from Monopoly*'
- 'I wish that I could walk right up to you' (40+ year old auntie)
- 'Boys need a g*something* to do' (This probably read 'Boys need a girl to do')
- 'Pilipinas wear your pride' (at first I read 'price')
- 'Feel so good'
- 'I ♥ u' (hidden in a listing of the alphabet from A-Z)
- 'Your boyfriend is staring'
- 'How can I miss you if you won't go away?'
- '*picture of cat* Why are you so lazy?'
- 'Pass me a move in gym class'
- 'Hate to *something* me go'
- '*Heart* Special sweeties just for you'
- ''I *recycle sign* boys'
- 'Today special'
- 'Recycle everything you can except boyfriends;
- 'Addicted t*picture of lips* you'
- 'Chevy is for *cross* lovers'
- 'Don't let me cry'
- 'Cherry 7-up'
- 'Born to love him *picture of blond emerging with shell fragments on his head*' (maybe this is a Taoist Pan Gu T-shirt)
- 'This is why I'm hot'
- 'You make my heart RACE!'
- 'Cutie'
- 'I'm too cute for you' (11 year old)
- 'Play with fire'
- 'Gonna bone'
- 'I ♥ Sailors' (the heart had Popeye inside)
Guy:
- 'Ladies love long-boards' (not thick ones?)
- 'Your money is my money. My money is my money'
- 'Whatever happens in Bermuda stays in Bermuda' (because it's so ulu word would never get out)
- [Contributed] 'Boys are a good source of protein'
I don't see the point of wearing a spaghetti strap top - which is really a spaghetti dress which ends at the butt - over a translucent long-sleeved top, with a tudung over it all.
"A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong." - Piet Hein
***
Lexington: Still crazy after all these years | The Economist
"Hofstadter, writing at the time of Barry Goldwater’s insurgency, argued that political paranoia—a mix of anger, heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy—was most evident on the extreme right. And there are plenty of examples of right-wingers peddling nutty tales. Isolationists in the 1940s accused Franklin Roosevelt of deliberately letting the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour to provide an excuse for war. Talk-radio crackpots in the 1990s accused the Clintons of having Vince Foster, a depressive friend of theirs who killed himself, murdered.
But the left is hardly immune to such fantasies. Some people, including Mr Obama’s own former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, believe that AIDS was cooked up by the government to kill blacks. A staggering 18% of Americans think that the government of George Bush probably knew in advance about the attacks of September 11th 2001 but allowed them to proceed anyway. Some even contend that Mr Bush orchestrated the attacks himself, to create an excuse for invading Iraq. To believe this, you have to believe that the Bushies were both wicked enough to murder thousands of Americans and brilliant enough to execute such a mind-bogglingly sophisticated plot without a single leak—in a culture where Richard Nixon could not even hush up a burglary.
Belief in conspiracy theories can be comforting. If everything that goes wrong is the fault of a secret cabal, that relieves you of the tedious necessity of trying to understand how a complex world really works. And you can feel smug that you are smart enough to “see through” the official version of events. But widespread paranoia has drawbacks. For a start, it makes calm, rational debate rather tricky. How can you discuss the trade-offs of health-care reform, for example, with someone who thinks the government is plotting to kill grandma? It does not help, either, that politicians on both sides are willing to fan the flames. Sarah Palin calls Mr Obama’s health-care proposals “evil”. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, calls the protesters who loudly oppose them “evil-mongers”. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, calls them “un-American”."
***
Lexington: Still crazy after all these years | The Economist
"Hofstadter, writing at the time of Barry Goldwater’s insurgency, argued that political paranoia—a mix of anger, heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy—was most evident on the extreme right. And there are plenty of examples of right-wingers peddling nutty tales. Isolationists in the 1940s accused Franklin Roosevelt of deliberately letting the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour to provide an excuse for war. Talk-radio crackpots in the 1990s accused the Clintons of having Vince Foster, a depressive friend of theirs who killed himself, murdered.
But the left is hardly immune to such fantasies. Some people, including Mr Obama’s own former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, believe that AIDS was cooked up by the government to kill blacks. A staggering 18% of Americans think that the government of George Bush probably knew in advance about the attacks of September 11th 2001 but allowed them to proceed anyway. Some even contend that Mr Bush orchestrated the attacks himself, to create an excuse for invading Iraq. To believe this, you have to believe that the Bushies were both wicked enough to murder thousands of Americans and brilliant enough to execute such a mind-bogglingly sophisticated plot without a single leak—in a culture where Richard Nixon could not even hush up a burglary.
Belief in conspiracy theories can be comforting. If everything that goes wrong is the fault of a secret cabal, that relieves you of the tedious necessity of trying to understand how a complex world really works. And you can feel smug that you are smart enough to “see through” the official version of events. But widespread paranoia has drawbacks. For a start, it makes calm, rational debate rather tricky. How can you discuss the trade-offs of health-care reform, for example, with someone who thinks the government is plotting to kill grandma? It does not help, either, that politicians on both sides are willing to fan the flames. Sarah Palin calls Mr Obama’s health-care proposals “evil”. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, calls the protesters who loudly oppose them “evil-mongers”. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, calls them “un-American”."
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." - G. K. Chesterton
***
An amusing series of letters:
October 1st
Singapore’s media laws
SIR – Banyan’s column wrongly stated that “not for the first time” the Far Eastern Economic Review “is banned in Singapore” (September 26th). The journal has never been banned in Singapore. At one time its circulation was restricted, but copies with the advertisements blanked out were circulated freely. This ensured the free flow of information, but prevented the Review from profiting commercially from engaging in our domestic politics.
Under our laws, offshore newspapers wishing to circulate in Singapore must post a security bond and appoint a local representative for service of legal process. The weekly Review had complied with these rules, as The Economist currently does itself. Unfortunately, in 2006 the monthly Review declined to comply and voluntarily discontinued circulating in Singapore.
Michael Eng Cheng Teo
High commissioner for Singapore
London
October 15th
Something to FEER
SIR – Singapore typically plays with words in claiming it never banned the Far Eastern Economic Review (Letters, October 3rd). On December 26th 1987 [Editor's note: This date originally read December 26th 1988] its circulation, previously about 10,000 a week, was cut to 500 to be distributed as officials directed. The magazine declined to circulate on this basis. In an attempt to show it was not “banning” it, Singapore sponsored a sloppily printed, advertisement-free pirate version distributed selectively and very hard to find on newsstands. As in Maoist China and North Korea, a favoured few were always allowed to read it.
Philip Bowring
Former editor
Far Eastern Economic Review
Hong Kong
October 22nd
Rights, and wrongs, of reply
SIR – Philip Bowring’s account of the Far Eastern Economic Review’s encounter with the Singapore government is inaccurate (Letters, October 17th). In 1987 the government restricted the circulation of the Review after it had engaged in Singapore’s domestic politics. But an advertisement-free version was distributed widely at bookshops and supermarkets, and sold more than 1,000 copies. In March 1988 the Review applied to produce a similar version. The government agreed, subject to a ceiling of 2,000 copies, but the Review refused its offer. Would this have happened in Maoist China and North Korea?
Michael Eng Cheng Teo
High commissioner for Singapore
London
SIR – You will be tempted to give the Singapore government the last word on its censorship strategy—as its “right of reply” policy demands—but this will neutralise the criticism of Mr Bowring and others. Readers will simply assume you agree with the government. Assuming you don’t, please print this alongside its next rebuttal, to expose this subtle yet powerful manipulation of the press.
Duncan M. Butlin
Chichester, West Sussex
[Ed: This is a great way to get your letter published]
***
An amusing series of letters:
October 1st
Singapore’s media laws
SIR – Banyan’s column wrongly stated that “not for the first time” the Far Eastern Economic Review “is banned in Singapore” (September 26th). The journal has never been banned in Singapore. At one time its circulation was restricted, but copies with the advertisements blanked out were circulated freely. This ensured the free flow of information, but prevented the Review from profiting commercially from engaging in our domestic politics.
Under our laws, offshore newspapers wishing to circulate in Singapore must post a security bond and appoint a local representative for service of legal process. The weekly Review had complied with these rules, as The Economist currently does itself. Unfortunately, in 2006 the monthly Review declined to comply and voluntarily discontinued circulating in Singapore.
Michael Eng Cheng Teo
High commissioner for Singapore
London
October 15th
Something to FEER
SIR – Singapore typically plays with words in claiming it never banned the Far Eastern Economic Review (Letters, October 3rd). On December 26th 1987 [Editor's note: This date originally read December 26th 1988] its circulation, previously about 10,000 a week, was cut to 500 to be distributed as officials directed. The magazine declined to circulate on this basis. In an attempt to show it was not “banning” it, Singapore sponsored a sloppily printed, advertisement-free pirate version distributed selectively and very hard to find on newsstands. As in Maoist China and North Korea, a favoured few were always allowed to read it.
Philip Bowring
Former editor
Far Eastern Economic Review
Hong Kong
October 22nd
Rights, and wrongs, of reply
SIR – Philip Bowring’s account of the Far Eastern Economic Review’s encounter with the Singapore government is inaccurate (Letters, October 17th). In 1987 the government restricted the circulation of the Review after it had engaged in Singapore’s domestic politics. But an advertisement-free version was distributed widely at bookshops and supermarkets, and sold more than 1,000 copies. In March 1988 the Review applied to produce a similar version. The government agreed, subject to a ceiling of 2,000 copies, but the Review refused its offer. Would this have happened in Maoist China and North Korea?
Michael Eng Cheng Teo
High commissioner for Singapore
London
SIR – You will be tempted to give the Singapore government the last word on its censorship strategy—as its “right of reply” policy demands—but this will neutralise the criticism of Mr Bowring and others. Readers will simply assume you agree with the government. Assuming you don’t, please print this alongside its next rebuttal, to expose this subtle yet powerful manipulation of the press.
Duncan M. Butlin
Chichester, West Sussex
[Ed: This is a great way to get your letter published]
Monday, October 26, 2009
"Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong." - Dr. Thomas Fuller
***
Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows
Study Says Even Full-figured Models Damage Self-esteem - "According to a new study conducted by a team of researchers from the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands and published in the Journal of Consumer Research, magazine photos of models, be they magically emaciated or plus-size, make overweight women feel worse about their bodies and, conversely, "underweight" women feel better about themselves. So unfair, right? A serious blow to the growing interest in "plus-size" or "full-figure" spreads, the study suggests that redefining standards of shape across the editorial and commercial side of print fashion won't be some sort of panacea for the already fragmented self-esteem of women who fall outside of our modern understanding of beauty... it's not the particular image someone looks at that's damaging, but rather the presentation of beauty, in any form, that troubles many readers... Crystal Renn and all the size 12 sweethearts in the world aren't going to make you feel any better if you don't already maintain a healthy distance between the fun and fantasy of fashion imagery and the real, live girl you see in the mirror"
Maybe they should hire ugly models next.
Who Killed Classical Music? - "The music business imposes a stringent vow of silence that is designed to protect a myth of the immaculate artist. That myth is now under siege from the information society. It is no longer a secret, for instance, that some tenors spend more time singing in sports arenas than on the opera stage; that `unprofessional behaviour' was the reason given by the Metropolitan Opera for dismissing a top soprano; that half the orchestras in Britain are facing bankruptcy; that Russian soloists who resisted communism cheered on the brutal invasion of Chechnya; that a well-known conductor ran off with his stepmother; that almost everything in music is up for sale to the highest bidder. Greed and fear have become the leading motives of an art in crisis. There are few secrets left in music, and little shame. While a handful of high performers grow rich and distant, unpushy artists go hungry and concerts halls are increasingly half empty. Even the big names fail to sell out, amid a widening yawn of ennui... the few genuine stars were induced to flog their precious gifts to the point of exhaustion. The genial Russian violinist Nathan Milstein once told me he would never play more than thirty dates a year"
The real-life Harry Potter reveals why sharing the wizard's name has made his life a misery - "Mr Potter has endured taunts from the public, police, phone companies and even a football referee - all because he shares a name with arguably the world's best known wizard. Mr Potter, who was born in 1989, had eight peaceful years of being a schoolboy with a fairly ordinary name before JK Rowling released a book entitled Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, and everything changed... Mr Potter even had to show his girlfriend his passport so she would believe him when they first met and a bus company refused to issue him with a pass because they didn't believe he was telling them the truth when he tried to sign up... Apart from the joke, Mr Potter has a far more humdrum life than his fictional counterpart from Hogwarts School of Wizardry. He works in the more mundane surroundings of Lloyds TSB... The young man, does however, share one key feature with his namesake, a scar on his forehead. Film Harry gained his in a battle with arch enemy evil Lord Voldemort. Mr Potter ran into a lamppost aged 15... 'I play a lot of football as well in a local league, and the match reports are always full of puns - 'Harry Potter cast a spell on the opposition and that kind of thing.'"
Giz Explains: Why Stuff Crashes (And Why It Happens Less Often Now) - BSoD - Gizmodo
HPB's anti-smoking campaign targets young women - "JoAnn Taylor, deputy director of Substance Abuse Department, HPB, said: "It's really appealing to women's essential needs. It's about looking good for their partner, for their friends or even for themselves. So it really appeals to women's idea of beauty.""
Notice who comes last in the list? Hehe. There doesn't seem to be any smoking campaign targeted at men. Maybe they figure that they're a lost cause. Or are too shy to warn against erectile dysfunction in public.
Singapore Police Arrest Falun Gong Practitioners While Meditating, Displaying Posters - "In Singapore, the practitioners have done their daily exercises at Esplanade Park, a popular tourist site near the Singapore River, for years. On the wall, they use Sticky Tack to put up posters illustrating the persecution in China. The police officers claimed that the posters damaged the wall. The practitioners explained that the Sticky Tack does not leave marks and offered to sweep the ground and clean the area every morning. Practitioners said the police handcuffed the four without warning or clear explanation. The police took all seven to the police station."
BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes - "The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery... The petition has 44 signatories so far"
Gotta love these Europeans
Trafficking is no myth – I endured it - "I was trafficked into a hellish world of forced prostitution that Nick Davies's report claims does not exist"
This is a classic case of FUD, which besides totally misunderstanding the article it purports to critique, even falsely attributes a quote to its author. Comment is free - because a lot of it is crap.
Diversity and equality are not the same thing - ""Even the very people who abhor his crude and frightening racism most find it hard to rebut his central thesis – that the white working class in Britain has had a raw deal over the last 30 years... The important thing to remember is that the black working class, the female working class, the gay working class, the disabled working class and the elderly working class, have had a similarly difficult time, under Labour and under the Conservatives... the real reason why the BNP is able to make capital out of racist assertions is because immigrants are the only group that has been overtly utilised as a tool to promote economic inequality... Many commentators have pointed out that under the strictures of "political correctness" the only group that can any longer be unabashedly despised is the white working class"
***
Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows
Study Says Even Full-figured Models Damage Self-esteem - "According to a new study conducted by a team of researchers from the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands and published in the Journal of Consumer Research, magazine photos of models, be they magically emaciated or plus-size, make overweight women feel worse about their bodies and, conversely, "underweight" women feel better about themselves. So unfair, right? A serious blow to the growing interest in "plus-size" or "full-figure" spreads, the study suggests that redefining standards of shape across the editorial and commercial side of print fashion won't be some sort of panacea for the already fragmented self-esteem of women who fall outside of our modern understanding of beauty... it's not the particular image someone looks at that's damaging, but rather the presentation of beauty, in any form, that troubles many readers... Crystal Renn and all the size 12 sweethearts in the world aren't going to make you feel any better if you don't already maintain a healthy distance between the fun and fantasy of fashion imagery and the real, live girl you see in the mirror"
Maybe they should hire ugly models next.
Who Killed Classical Music? - "The music business imposes a stringent vow of silence that is designed to protect a myth of the immaculate artist. That myth is now under siege from the information society. It is no longer a secret, for instance, that some tenors spend more time singing in sports arenas than on the opera stage; that `unprofessional behaviour' was the reason given by the Metropolitan Opera for dismissing a top soprano; that half the orchestras in Britain are facing bankruptcy; that Russian soloists who resisted communism cheered on the brutal invasion of Chechnya; that a well-known conductor ran off with his stepmother; that almost everything in music is up for sale to the highest bidder. Greed and fear have become the leading motives of an art in crisis. There are few secrets left in music, and little shame. While a handful of high performers grow rich and distant, unpushy artists go hungry and concerts halls are increasingly half empty. Even the big names fail to sell out, amid a widening yawn of ennui... the few genuine stars were induced to flog their precious gifts to the point of exhaustion. The genial Russian violinist Nathan Milstein once told me he would never play more than thirty dates a year"
The real-life Harry Potter reveals why sharing the wizard's name has made his life a misery - "Mr Potter has endured taunts from the public, police, phone companies and even a football referee - all because he shares a name with arguably the world's best known wizard. Mr Potter, who was born in 1989, had eight peaceful years of being a schoolboy with a fairly ordinary name before JK Rowling released a book entitled Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, and everything changed... Mr Potter even had to show his girlfriend his passport so she would believe him when they first met and a bus company refused to issue him with a pass because they didn't believe he was telling them the truth when he tried to sign up... Apart from the joke, Mr Potter has a far more humdrum life than his fictional counterpart from Hogwarts School of Wizardry. He works in the more mundane surroundings of Lloyds TSB... The young man, does however, share one key feature with his namesake, a scar on his forehead. Film Harry gained his in a battle with arch enemy evil Lord Voldemort. Mr Potter ran into a lamppost aged 15... 'I play a lot of football as well in a local league, and the match reports are always full of puns - 'Harry Potter cast a spell on the opposition and that kind of thing.'"
Giz Explains: Why Stuff Crashes (And Why It Happens Less Often Now) - BSoD - Gizmodo
HPB's anti-smoking campaign targets young women - "JoAnn Taylor, deputy director of Substance Abuse Department, HPB, said: "It's really appealing to women's essential needs. It's about looking good for their partner, for their friends or even for themselves. So it really appeals to women's idea of beauty.""
Notice who comes last in the list? Hehe. There doesn't seem to be any smoking campaign targeted at men. Maybe they figure that they're a lost cause. Or are too shy to warn against erectile dysfunction in public.
Singapore Police Arrest Falun Gong Practitioners While Meditating, Displaying Posters - "In Singapore, the practitioners have done their daily exercises at Esplanade Park, a popular tourist site near the Singapore River, for years. On the wall, they use Sticky Tack to put up posters illustrating the persecution in China. The police officers claimed that the posters damaged the wall. The practitioners explained that the Sticky Tack does not leave marks and offered to sweep the ground and clean the area every morning. Practitioners said the police handcuffed the four without warning or clear explanation. The police took all seven to the police station."
BBC NEWS | Europe | Rich Germans demand higher taxes - "The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery... The petition has 44 signatories so far"
Gotta love these Europeans
Trafficking is no myth – I endured it - "I was trafficked into a hellish world of forced prostitution that Nick Davies's report claims does not exist"
This is a classic case of FUD, which besides totally misunderstanding the article it purports to critique, even falsely attributes a quote to its author. Comment is free - because a lot of it is crap.
Diversity and equality are not the same thing - ""Even the very people who abhor his crude and frightening racism most find it hard to rebut his central thesis – that the white working class in Britain has had a raw deal over the last 30 years... The important thing to remember is that the black working class, the female working class, the gay working class, the disabled working class and the elderly working class, have had a similarly difficult time, under Labour and under the Conservatives... the real reason why the BNP is able to make capital out of racist assertions is because immigrants are the only group that has been overtly utilised as a tool to promote economic inequality... Many commentators have pointed out that under the strictures of "political correctness" the only group that can any longer be unabashedly despised is the white working class"
From Merriam Webster's Word of the Day (October 25th):
"The natant athletes who've done their time at the local natatorium are easily distinguished by their natatorial skills; their natation is markedly better than that of those who have practiced less."
"The natant athletes who've done their time at the local natatorium are easily distinguished by their natatorial skills; their natation is markedly better than that of those who have practiced less."
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Je l'ai choisi. On est ce qu'on veut.
"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?" - Jean Cocteau
***
GARCIN: Écoute, chacun a son but, n'est-ce pas ? Moi, je me foutais de l'argent, de l'amour. Je voulais être un homme. Un dur. J'ai tout misé sur le même cheval. Est-ce que c'est possible qu'on soit un lâche quand on a choisi les chemins les plus dangereux ? Peut-on juger une vie sur un seul acte ?
INÈS: Pourquoi pas ? Tu as rêvé trente ans que tu avais du cœur ; et tu te passais mille petites faiblesses parce que tout est permis aux héros. Comme c'était commode! Et puis, à l'heure du danger, on t'a mis au pied du mur et... tu as pris le train pour Mexico.
GARCIN: Je n'ai pas rêvé cet héroïsme. Je l'ai choisi. On est ce qu'on veut.
INÈS: Prouve-le. Prouve que ce n'était pas un rêve. Seuls les actes décident de ce qu'on a voulu.
GARCIN: Je suis mort trop tôt. On ne m'a pas laissé le temps de faire mes actes.
INÈS: On meurt toujours trop tôt - ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est là, terminée : le trait est tiré, il faut faire la somme. Tu n'es rien d'autre que ta vie.
GARCIN: Vipère ! Tu as réponse à tout.
Incidentally, from this dialogue I have learnt the very flexible word "foutre".
Thank you, Sartre!
***
GARCIN: Écoute, chacun a son but, n'est-ce pas ? Moi, je me foutais de l'argent, de l'amour. Je voulais être un homme. Un dur. J'ai tout misé sur le même cheval. Est-ce que c'est possible qu'on soit un lâche quand on a choisi les chemins les plus dangereux ? Peut-on juger une vie sur un seul acte ?
INÈS: Pourquoi pas ? Tu as rêvé trente ans que tu avais du cœur ; et tu te passais mille petites faiblesses parce que tout est permis aux héros. Comme c'était commode! Et puis, à l'heure du danger, on t'a mis au pied du mur et... tu as pris le train pour Mexico.
GARCIN: Je n'ai pas rêvé cet héroïsme. Je l'ai choisi. On est ce qu'on veut.
INÈS: Prouve-le. Prouve que ce n'était pas un rêve. Seuls les actes décident de ce qu'on a voulu.
GARCIN: Je suis mort trop tôt. On ne m'a pas laissé le temps de faire mes actes.
INÈS: On meurt toujours trop tôt - ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est là, terminée : le trait est tiré, il faut faire la somme. Tu n'es rien d'autre que ta vie.
GARCIN: Vipère ! Tu as réponse à tout.
Incidentally, from this dialogue I have learnt the very flexible word "foutre".
Thank you, Sartre!
"C'est une maladie de l'âme, dont nous afflige la nature en nous donnant l'existence; c'est le ver solitaire qui absorbe tout.
L'ennui est l'avant-goût du néant, mais le néant lui est préférable.
Ah! Je le répète sans cesse, il n'y a qu'un malheur, celui d'être né.
Comment est-il possible, qu'on craigne la fin d'une vie aussi triste?"
L'ennui est l'avant-goût du néant, mais le néant lui est préférable.
Ah! Je le répète sans cesse, il n'y a qu'un malheur, celui d'être né.
Comment est-il possible, qu'on craigne la fin d'une vie aussi triste?"
"The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible." - David M. Ogilvy
***
"In the silentest meeting, the eye reads the plain prose of life, timidity, caution, appetite, ignorance, old houses, musty savors, stationary, retrograde faculties puttering round (to use the country phrase) in paltry routines from January to December.
These are the precincts of comedy and farce. And a taste for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds, neither do anything ridiculous, nor betray a perception of anything absurd done in their presence. And as the lower nature does not jest, neither does the highest. The Reason pronounces its omniscient yea and nay, but meddles never with degrees or fractions, and it is in comparing fractions with essential integers or wholes, that laughter begins.
Aristotle’s definition of the ridiculous is, "what is out of time and place, without danger." If there be pain and danger, it becomes tragic; if not, comic. I confess, this definition, though by an admirable definer, does not satisfy me, does not say all we know. The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be halfness; a non-performance of what is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The baulking of the intellect, the frustrated expectation, the break of continuity in the intellect, is what we call comedy; and it announces itself physically in the pleasant spasm we call Laughter...
This is the radical joke of life and then of literature. The presence of the ideal of right and of truth in all action, makes the yawning delinquencies of practice remorseful to the conscience, tragic to the interest, but droll to the intellect. The activity of our sympathies may for a time hinder our perceiving the fact intellectually, and so deriving mirth from it, but all falsehoods, all vices seen at sufficient distance, seen from the point where our moral sympathies do not interfere, become ludicrous. The comedy is in the intellect’s perception of discrepancy. And whilst the presence of the ideal discovers the difference, the comedy is enhanced whenever that ideal is embodied visibly in a man. Thus Falstaff, in Shakespeare, is a character of the broadest comedy, giving himself unreservedly to his senses, coolly ignoring the reason, whilst he invokes its name, pretending to patriotism and to parental Virtues, not with any intent to deceive, but only to make the fun perfect by enjoying the confusion betwixt reason and the negation of reason, in other words, the rank rascaldom he is calling by its name...
A perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character. Wherever the intellect is constructive, it will be found. We feel the absence of it as a defect in the noblest and most oracular soul. It insulates the man, cuts down all bridges between him and other men. The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, is a pledge of sanity, and is a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities into which fine intellects some times lose themselves. A man alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow men can do little for him...
The peace of society and the decorum of tables seem to require that next to a notable wit should always be posted a phlegmatic bolt-upright man, able to stand without movement of muscle whole broadsides of this Greek fire. It is a true shaft of Apollo, and traverses the universe, unless it encounter a mystic or a dumpish soul, and goes everywhere heralded and harbingered by smiles and greetings. Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage can plead any immunity, — they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all. "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Plutarch very happily expresses the value of the jest as a legitimate weapon of the philosopher. "Men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily ; for as it is the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so, so it is the top of wisdom to philosophize yet not appear to do it, and in mirth to do the same with those that are serious and seem in earnest"...
In all the parts of life, the occasion of laughter is some seeming, some keeping of the word to the ear and eye, whilst it is broken to the soul. Thus, as the religious sentiment is the most vital and sublime of all our sentiments, and capable of the most prodigious effects, so is it abhorrent to our whole nature, when in the absence of the sentiment, the act or word or officer volunteers to stand in its stead. To the sympathies this is shocking, and occasions grief. But to the intellect, the lack of the sentiment gives pain; it compares incessantly the sublime idea with the bloated nothing which pretends to be it, and the sense of the disproportion is comedy. And as the religious sentiment is the most real and earnest thing in nature, being a mere rapture, and excluding, when it appears, all other considerations, the vitiating this is the greatest lie. Therefore, the oldest jibe of literature is the ridicule of false religion. This is the joke of jokes. In religion, the sentiment is all ; the rite indifferent. But the inertia of men inclines them when the sentiment sleeps, to imitate that thing it did; it goes through the ceremony omitting only the will, makes the mistake of the wig for the head, the clothes for the man. The older the mistake and the more overgrown the particular form is, the more ridiculous to the intellect...
In science, the jest at pedantry is analogous to that in religion which lies against superstition. A classification or nomenclature used by the scholar only as a memorandum of his last lesson in the laws of nature; and confessedly a makeshift, a bivouac for a night, and implying a march and a conquest to-morrow, becomes through indolence a barrack and a prison, in which the man sits down immovably, and wishes to detain others. The physiologist, Camper, humorously confesses the effect of his studies in dislocating his ordinary associations. “I have been employed,” he says, “six months on the Cetacea; I understand the osteology of the head of all these monsters, and have made the combination with the human head so well, that every body now appears to me narwhale, porpoise, or marsouins. Women, the prettiest in society, and those whom I find less comely, — they are all either narwhales or porpoises to my eyes.” I chanced the other day to fall in with an odd illustration of the remark I had heard, that the laws of disease are as beautiful as the laws of health; I was hastening to visit an old and honored friend, who, I was in formed, was in a dying condition, when I met his physician, who accosted me in great spirits, with joy sparkling in his eyes. “And how is my friend, the Doctor?” I inquired. “ Oh, I saw him this morning ; it is the most correct apoplexy I have ever seen; face and hands livid, breathing stertorous, all the symptoms perfect;” and he rubbed his hands with delight; for in the country we cannot find every day a case that agrees with the diagnosis of the books...
The pedantry of literature belongs to the same category. In both cases there is a lie, when time mind seizing a classification to help it to sincerer knowledge of the fact, stops in the classification; or learning languages. and reading books, to the end of a better acquaintance with man, stops in the languages and books; in both the learner seems to be wise and is not...
But the comic also has its own speedy limits. Mirth quickly becomes intemperate, and the man would soon die of inanition, as some persons have been tickled to death. The same scourge whips the joker and the enjoyer of the joke. When Carlini was convulsing Naples with laughter, a patient waited on a physician in that city, to obtain some remedy for excessive melancholy, which was rapidly consuming his life. The physician endeavored to cheer his spirits, and advised him to go to the theatre and see Carlini. He replied, “I am Carlini.”"
--- The Comic / Ralph Waldo Emerson
***
"In the silentest meeting, the eye reads the plain prose of life, timidity, caution, appetite, ignorance, old houses, musty savors, stationary, retrograde faculties puttering round (to use the country phrase) in paltry routines from January to December.
These are the precincts of comedy and farce. And a taste for fun is all but universal in our species, which is the only joker in nature. The rocks, the plants, the beasts, the birds, neither do anything ridiculous, nor betray a perception of anything absurd done in their presence. And as the lower nature does not jest, neither does the highest. The Reason pronounces its omniscient yea and nay, but meddles never with degrees or fractions, and it is in comparing fractions with essential integers or wholes, that laughter begins.
Aristotle’s definition of the ridiculous is, "what is out of time and place, without danger." If there be pain and danger, it becomes tragic; if not, comic. I confess, this definition, though by an admirable definer, does not satisfy me, does not say all we know. The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be halfness; a non-performance of what is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The baulking of the intellect, the frustrated expectation, the break of continuity in the intellect, is what we call comedy; and it announces itself physically in the pleasant spasm we call Laughter...
This is the radical joke of life and then of literature. The presence of the ideal of right and of truth in all action, makes the yawning delinquencies of practice remorseful to the conscience, tragic to the interest, but droll to the intellect. The activity of our sympathies may for a time hinder our perceiving the fact intellectually, and so deriving mirth from it, but all falsehoods, all vices seen at sufficient distance, seen from the point where our moral sympathies do not interfere, become ludicrous. The comedy is in the intellect’s perception of discrepancy. And whilst the presence of the ideal discovers the difference, the comedy is enhanced whenever that ideal is embodied visibly in a man. Thus Falstaff, in Shakespeare, is a character of the broadest comedy, giving himself unreservedly to his senses, coolly ignoring the reason, whilst he invokes its name, pretending to patriotism and to parental Virtues, not with any intent to deceive, but only to make the fun perfect by enjoying the confusion betwixt reason and the negation of reason, in other words, the rank rascaldom he is calling by its name...
A perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character. Wherever the intellect is constructive, it will be found. We feel the absence of it as a defect in the noblest and most oracular soul. It insulates the man, cuts down all bridges between him and other men. The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, is a pledge of sanity, and is a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities into which fine intellects some times lose themselves. A man alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow men can do little for him...
The peace of society and the decorum of tables seem to require that next to a notable wit should always be posted a phlegmatic bolt-upright man, able to stand without movement of muscle whole broadsides of this Greek fire. It is a true shaft of Apollo, and traverses the universe, unless it encounter a mystic or a dumpish soul, and goes everywhere heralded and harbingered by smiles and greetings. Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage can plead any immunity, — they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all. "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Plutarch very happily expresses the value of the jest as a legitimate weapon of the philosopher. "Men cannot exercise their rhetoric unless they speak, but their philosophy even whilst they are silent or jest merrily ; for as it is the highest degree of injustice not to be just and yet seem so, so it is the top of wisdom to philosophize yet not appear to do it, and in mirth to do the same with those that are serious and seem in earnest"...
In all the parts of life, the occasion of laughter is some seeming, some keeping of the word to the ear and eye, whilst it is broken to the soul. Thus, as the religious sentiment is the most vital and sublime of all our sentiments, and capable of the most prodigious effects, so is it abhorrent to our whole nature, when in the absence of the sentiment, the act or word or officer volunteers to stand in its stead. To the sympathies this is shocking, and occasions grief. But to the intellect, the lack of the sentiment gives pain; it compares incessantly the sublime idea with the bloated nothing which pretends to be it, and the sense of the disproportion is comedy. And as the religious sentiment is the most real and earnest thing in nature, being a mere rapture, and excluding, when it appears, all other considerations, the vitiating this is the greatest lie. Therefore, the oldest jibe of literature is the ridicule of false religion. This is the joke of jokes. In religion, the sentiment is all ; the rite indifferent. But the inertia of men inclines them when the sentiment sleeps, to imitate that thing it did; it goes through the ceremony omitting only the will, makes the mistake of the wig for the head, the clothes for the man. The older the mistake and the more overgrown the particular form is, the more ridiculous to the intellect...
In science, the jest at pedantry is analogous to that in religion which lies against superstition. A classification or nomenclature used by the scholar only as a memorandum of his last lesson in the laws of nature; and confessedly a makeshift, a bivouac for a night, and implying a march and a conquest to-morrow, becomes through indolence a barrack and a prison, in which the man sits down immovably, and wishes to detain others. The physiologist, Camper, humorously confesses the effect of his studies in dislocating his ordinary associations. “I have been employed,” he says, “six months on the Cetacea; I understand the osteology of the head of all these monsters, and have made the combination with the human head so well, that every body now appears to me narwhale, porpoise, or marsouins. Women, the prettiest in society, and those whom I find less comely, — they are all either narwhales or porpoises to my eyes.” I chanced the other day to fall in with an odd illustration of the remark I had heard, that the laws of disease are as beautiful as the laws of health; I was hastening to visit an old and honored friend, who, I was in formed, was in a dying condition, when I met his physician, who accosted me in great spirits, with joy sparkling in his eyes. “And how is my friend, the Doctor?” I inquired. “ Oh, I saw him this morning ; it is the most correct apoplexy I have ever seen; face and hands livid, breathing stertorous, all the symptoms perfect;” and he rubbed his hands with delight; for in the country we cannot find every day a case that agrees with the diagnosis of the books...
The pedantry of literature belongs to the same category. In both cases there is a lie, when time mind seizing a classification to help it to sincerer knowledge of the fact, stops in the classification; or learning languages. and reading books, to the end of a better acquaintance with man, stops in the languages and books; in both the learner seems to be wise and is not...
But the comic also has its own speedy limits. Mirth quickly becomes intemperate, and the man would soon die of inanition, as some persons have been tickled to death. The same scourge whips the joker and the enjoyer of the joke. When Carlini was convulsing Naples with laughter, a patient waited on a physician in that city, to obtain some remedy for excessive melancholy, which was rapidly consuming his life. The physician endeavored to cheer his spirits, and advised him to go to the theatre and see Carlini. He replied, “I am Carlini.”"
--- The Comic / Ralph Waldo Emerson