Advice: Ape Not The Philosophers
Wisdom often suffers the defect of being inapplicable within the context of an unwise life, a proposition which may well serve the underlying principles of the pearl but fail to pay due mind to the marketing angle. Memes low in contagion are doomed, regardless of their affinity to ultimate truth.
This is, in part, why quoting aphorisms easily lends a glaze of snotty fucktard to a speaker unless they are so obviously holy that it makes your bones quiver and your head open. In the absence of mammal magic the speaker's credibility is diminished rather than enhanced by aping spiritual pedantry.
All would be Hegels, all would be Yodas; pay heed all would be Robbins and Ibn Rushds: shut up.
Current Events: Pope On A Rope
The current patriarch of the Holy See has proven more wiggly than Bill Clinton in the field of artless attempts to distance oneself from one's own actions. I am truly impressed by his notion that one can make a quotation and then claim the contents of the quotation have no bearing on what he was saying.
If this is indeed the case, it was a pretty poor selection as a quotation.
Having read various chunks of the pontiff's remarks the refuge of "context" also offers no hope in my opinion, as his subject was clearly the problem of violence justified by religious righteousness with a particular focus on radical Muslims. Quoting a notorious Islamophobe to make this case is skating on thin ice, no matter how you shake it. Quoting actual Islamophobic comments from a notorious Islamophobe is just plain stupid.
This is the same common sense that steers us away from quoting known anti-Semites when discussing Israel, lest we invite Godwin.
How did this goof become pope, anyway? Didn't he have to answer any skill testing questions? Wasn't there a road test?
I know, I know -- he was a professor in his mild mannered non-papal life. This is supposed to reassure us of his cerebral chutzpah because all professors are smart, and if they appear to be saying dumb things Occam's Razor dictates that the most likely explanation if that we're too dumb to be really following along.
Which, of course, we are (if there's any kind of emphasis on the we, that is).
At any rate, if this current debacle is any sign of the pontiff's political acumen, we can expect some truly spectacular blunders in the future. Go, Pope, go!
Update: Oak On The Hook
So, my insurance is going to cover Old Oak's blunder with the neighbours' flooded basement, and the only one having to sign anything declaring himself ultimately responsible financially is Old Oak himself, which is proper.
In order for this to happen our crack team of one reasonably competent lawyer had to go all apeshit on the insurance company, threatening to sue them and so on and so forth. Now the case has been handed to the insurer's beagle, a compact Japanese man who thinks Old Oak needs a Latvian translator.
In his glee Old Oak went out and bought a new riding lawnmower for the Old Schoolhouse. He then proceeded to get very angry at it, for reasons I wasn't around to witness. Later, the mower worked but not well enough to impress him.
A couple of days ago he came upstairs in interruption of my writing time in order to mumble incoherently around the subject of almost saying "thank you" for trying to take the whole problem off his hands. He began to hint that there might be a lawnmower in it for me should things work out, but what he was getting at was very unclear and I'm now Pavlovianistically trained to reflexively steer away from any conversation in which Old Oak may be trying to do what he perceives as a kindness, because there are always strings attached.
Not right away, no. Not all at once.
("But in time they begin to grow, wrapping themselves around the cerebral cortex. Madness follows, then death. Allow me to introduce Ceti Alpha Five's only remaining -- indigenous -- form of life. These are pets, of course, not quite domesticated.")
...So it's better he buy the lawnmower out of exuberence for not having to spend $5000 on a lawyer, rather than as any kind of "gift."
Also, we can cut the lawn again which is a goodness.
Profile: Baby Yam
There is a very good reason why six-month-old people don't stand: they can't.
This fact does not deter Baby Yam. He looks like we beat him: boxer bruise under his eye, lump on his head, fat lip. He is constantly falling because he's the only one around who doesn't know he can't walk. He cruises from easychair to chesterfield, chesterfield to ottoman, ottoman to mid-air, mid-air to flat on his face.
He shuffles along with determination, his brow furrowed as he scans for the next point of purchase. He casts off one hand and then the other, screwing up the courage to sail out into the bipedal unknown -- and then falls again, absording the impact with his wee button nose. Crying ensues.
"I think we should get him a helmet," says Littlestar. "I'd rather he look like a Greztky child than be a Greztky child after taking one too many blows to the head."
Comments Baby Yam, "Da da da da da da da!"
Then he falls down and starts to cry. I roll my eyes. "Jesus Murphy Brown, child!"
His favourite thing to do is sprint, which he can only do with assistance. I hold his little hands and run him around the yard or the house, veering around corners, scooting down hills, his wee feet flapping like mad to keep up. He squeals and he grins, showing the world his Gollum-like five-toothed mouth. "Yiiiiii!"
Trouble is his middle name. He is instinctively drawn to harsh chemical cleaning products and poison. He likes to pull things down on top of himself: books, shelving units, lamps, garbage cans, stacks of file folders, computers...
His favourite light snack is paper.
When his diaper is taken off he takes great glee in savagely grabbing and roughly manipulating his small scrotum. It makes me cringe. He blows raspberries and yanks his crank as if he's an auto-starting chainsaw. "B'b'b'b'b'b'buh!"
He makes kissy sounds to try to call the cats over. But they know better.
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