Cartoon Saturday

As another week staggers and gasps to a close and I look forward to a day of working in the garden in 90-degree heat, I need a bit of cheering up to launch me into the weekend.

Yes, once again, Bilbo presents Cartoon Saturday!

The first one is a bonus repeat...I've used it before, but in the context of my previous post, I think it's worth running again...

I enjoy poetry, and I love puns. It's great when the two come together...

Sometimes, what you need is a cartoon that sets up a really dumb joke. And if it's a pun, so much the better...


Blondie is one of my favorite running cartoon strips, and Dagwood and I understand each other all too well...

Some years ago, I was in charge of personnel matters for an Air Force unit, and we often struggled to put the right person in the right job. We tried all sorts of tests and methods of evaluation to make what sometimes turned out to be the wrong choice, anyhow. This particular test, we never had available...

I had to look twice at this one, but once I got it, I laughed myself silly (of course, it didn't take too much effort)...

Don't forget that I collect cartoons, and always welcome great ones that you might have hidden away. I'm particularly looking for cartoons with different takes on the same caption: two examples are "Any other messages?" and "I told you not to order in French!" If you have a favorite cartoon you'd like to share, e-mail it to me at bilbo_the_blogger at symbol yahoo dot com. Every contribution is welcome.

Have a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Essence of Religious Leadership

I don't often post twice in one day, but I couldn't pass up this one.

Check out this story on CNN.com, which tells about how that paragon of religious virtue, Moqtada al Sadr, is announcing that he's forming a new force to fight the U.S. in Iraq. I'll wait a minute while you read it.

Done? Okay, did you notice the part where Mr Sadr says, "We will not stop resisting the occupation until liberation or martyrdom"?

Who do you suppose the "we" is to whom Mr Sadr refers? I don't think for a moment that he will be risking his empty, turbaned head to seek "martyrdom" fighting against the "occupiers." He has plenty of deluded young men and women he's willing to encourage to die on his behalf while he urges them on from his place of safety.

This is what passes for principled religious leadership in the Middle East.

You have to think that God is shaking his (or her) head in frustration at the morons who act in his (or her) name.

Have a good day. More thoughts later.

Bilbo

"Not Immediately Returned" and Other Things That Grind My Gears

I'm feeling grouchy this morning, so it's time to get in touch with my inner curmudgeon again by griping about a few things.

One of the things we are blessed with here in the United States is a vibrant and unbridled free press. The problem is that "vibrant and unbridled" doesn't always equate to "intelligent." One of the things that amazes me is the trend toward what I call "Gotcha Journalism" - the desperate search for the scandal that just has to be there if the reporter only digs long enough. Part of Gotcha Journalism is the line that is almost standard in any embarrassing investigative report (i.e., gotcha article): "A call to Congressman Earmark's office asking for comment was not immediately returned."

Not immediately returned. I think this line represents the height of arrogance. It implies that nothing is more important than returning that call from Marty Muckraker at the Daily Bloviator. I don't always immediately return calls. At my age, when I come home I don't immediately check the answering machine...I immediately go to the bathroom. Whatever's on the answering machine can wait. But in the context of Gotcha Journalism, not immediately returned implies that that Congressman Earmark, that dirty scumbag, is hiding something by avoiding the stern gaze of Mr Muckraker, lantern-jawed guardian of the public good.

What a crock.

Another thing that irritates me nowadays: point-of-sale terminals.

I almost never pay cash for anything over about $5.00 any more - I use my debit card. I used to write a dozen or more checks a week...now I write them only to pay bills that have to be paid by mail, or to rent floor space for practice at a local dance studio. Everything else goes on the debit card. The problem is that there are no two places on earth that have identical point-of-sale terminals. Do you swipe on the left, right, top or bottom of the machine? Magnetic strip up or down, left or right as you swipe? Do you have to select credit or debit, or does the machine sense it? How many silly questions do you have to answer on screen while you wait? Where are the yes/no buttons to answer them with - left, right, or on the screen? Is the machine a touch-screen that needs a stylus (which is usually missing) or can you use your finger?

Someday, when I'm fabulously wealthy and spending the rest of my life taking Princess Cruises to every destination they visit, I'm going to endow a foundation dedicated to developing and fielding a single, standard, easy-to-use point of sale terminal...and driving every business that doesn't use it into receivership.

So there.

Gas prices. Out of sight. And I'm tired of everyone saying it's nobody's fault, particularly when the major oil companies are posting all-time record profits even as the local stations make pennies on the sale of each gallon. You may have seen these pictures:

and...What more can I say?

It's Friday, which means that the weekend is almost here. And I'll spend much of it swiping my debit card at a dozen different point of sale terminals.

If you listen carefully, the low, griping sound you hear in the background is me.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Suit's Here!

You may recall that I told you some time ago that I'd ordered a custom-tailored "tailsuit" to wear for international-style ballroom dance competitions. I'd grown used to wearing a tuxedo for the smooth dances (Waltz, Tango, Fox Trot) in the American style, but as a result of a conspiracy hatched many years ago between the High Overlords of Ballroom Haberdashery and the tailoring industry, it is considered necessary to wear tails to dance the standard dances (Waltz, Tango, Slow Foxtrot, Quickstep, Viennese Waltz) in international style.

The tailsuit arrived yesterday via Fed-Ex, and is now hanging up to let the worst of the packing wrinkles fall out. I hope it works. Agnes has tried hanging me up to get the wrinkles to fall out, and that didn't work.

Anyhow, I've been looking at this very expensive suit and trying to figure out how to wear it. There are the pants (which have a very high waistline) and the jacket, and there's the shirt, which has separately-attached cuffs and celluloid collar, as well as the shirt studs and cuff links. And the white tie. And the suspenders (braces, I suppose, for my British readers). This is going to be interesting. It took long enough to get used to wearing an ordinary tuxedo: between the suspenders pulling the pants up and the garters pulling the shirt tails down, I kept having an almost uncontrollable urge to pitch forward all the time.

One particularly interesting thing about this suit is that I can pretty much only wear it for dancing because of the way it's cut. An ordinary suit (or tuxedo) is designed to fit as one stands in a normal position with arms at his sides. But when you dance, and raise your arms to the position required to hold the lady in dance position, the jacket rides up and bunches across the back because you're standing in a somewhat unnatural position (to imagine dance position, stand up and extend both arms straight out to the sides at shoulder height. Then bend your left arm up at about a 45-degree angle, and fold your right arm forward at the elbow until the flat of your hand is parallel to your chest. That's basic dance position for a gentleman). The tailsuit is tailored to fit properly when I'm actually in dance position...meaning that when I'm just standing there, it looks as if it's not properly cut. Sigh.

It does look good, though, for the most part. I am very upset, though, because the tailor has spelled out its logo ("Pure Class") in silver rhinestones across the top of the front breast pocket. I think this is tacky. Everyone knows I'm a classy fellow and don't need to advertise the fact. I don't think it's dignified to look like a decal-bedecked NASCAR entry while I'm dancing. Ladies' ball gowns don't have such tacky advertisements on them.

AARRGGHH!!

Well anyhow, once the wrinkles fall out, I'll try the suit on and have Agnes take some pictures so you can see how I look when I clean up. If nothing else, I can wear it to fancy restaurants and try to trick people into thinking I'm the headwaiter, and give me tips.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - Letter-writing project update: the first letter (for Andrea) is nearly done and should be ready to mail tomorrow. The next ones will go to Amanda, Mike, John, and my daughter. Jean-Luc, if you're still interested, I'll send you one...just drop me your address.

B.

Reading, Writing, and Googling

Well, it's 4:38 AM, and our power just came back on about a half-hour ago...we had another big storm last night and - as usual - our electricity went out. It was out longer than usual this time, though...about eight hours. Good thing we keep lots of candles around the house...perhaps Dominion Virginia Power ought to give each household a box of them once a year or so.

My offer in yesterday's post of handwritten personal letters to the first five people who sent me their address has had four takers so far. Andrea's letter is in progress (partly written last night and this morning by candlelight); Amanda's, Mike's, and John's will follow as my brain and wrist can handle them. There's still one more letter opportunity for another reader...if you would like to have the old-time, exciting experience of actually getting a real, handwritten snail mail letter that doesn't ask for money, send your mailing address to me at "bilbo_the_blogger - at symbol - yahoo.com," and I'll add you to the list. Once again, the deal is this: I'll write you a letter, and you promise to write back once you receive it. Think of it as Bilbo's effort to bring back the lost art of personal correspondence.

Yesterday, I started my post with a look at the marvelous book The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Today, I'd like to point you to a related article in this month's issue of The Atlantic titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" This article focuses on the negative effect of Google in particular and the Internet in general in diminishing our ability and willingness to read full-length books and longer essays, noting that "...the more (people) use the web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing." For my part, I haven't noticed this happening - I still enjoy reading full-length articles and books as much as ever. However, I have noticed that I'm much more likely to stop reading something if it doesn't hold my interest. I don't know if the Internet is to blame, or if I'm just exercising my curmudgeonly right to jettison stuff that isn't worth my time to read.

Here is a particularly interesting quote from the article: "'We are not only what we read,' says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. 'We are how we read.' Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts 'efficiency' and 'immediacy' above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become 'mere decoders of information.' Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged."

When we read things online, we're often distracted by pop-up ads, flashing comments in the margins, and other elements of what Edward Tufte would probably call chartjunk. We don't focus the way we do over the printed page. And we're tied to a screen that depends on a battery that can die or a cable that keeps us within a certain radius of an outlet. Last night and early this morning while the power was out, I was able to light candles and keep reading while my otherwise marvelous iMac was reduced to a high-tech paperweight.

Take the time to read the Atlantic article...online if you must, but it's better on the printed page. If you are at all interested in reading and thinking, and the impact of the Internet on both, it's very much worth your time.

And speaking of time, it's now time for me to take Punky for her morning constitutional, pack my lunch, and head to the office to slay more paper dragons.

Have a good day. Read more. Write more.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Have I Got a Deal for You!

Yesterday I finished reading The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. It took about twice as long to read as a book of its length normally would, because of the wealth of history and detail, and the power of the arguments.

Ms Jacoby articulately traces the history of America's tendency toward "anti-intellectualism," and its effect on our history, culture, and international relations. Stiff-necked "conservatives" and ivory-tower "liberals" are equally pilloried for their efforts to dumb down American education. She looks at educational fads (like the "Baby Einstein" DVD sets), the pernicious effect of video and the Internet on reading, and the decline of American's skills in math, geography, reading, writing, and conversation. And she doesn't think much of blogging as a substitute for any of these.

One of her most devastating arguments deals with the decline of writing in general, and the art of writing letters in particular. She writes,

"Future historians will look in vain for the kinds of letters that passed between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; Gustave Flaubert and George Sand; Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann; Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy; Lord Byron and everyone in his world. They will look in vain for traces of an intellectual life in which reading, writing, and conversing face-to-face are seamlessly linked in a way that facilitates deep connections among people who love ideas."

I have written here often enough about my love of writing letters, and about how little of it I do any more. Katherine can tell you that my once-awesome correspondence has been reduced in most cases to a single, multi-page, individualized Christmas letter that goes out only to about a dozen of my oldest and closest friends. At one time, I was churning out long, chatty letters to my friends and relatives at the rate of about five or six a week...and now it's down to one a year at Christmas. I could blame lack of time (which is true), and lack of feedback (since most people love receiving letters, but don't like answering them), but those are just evasions. The simple truth is that I've gotten lazy.

And so here's the deal I have for my blogging friends...

The first five of you who e-mail your snail-mail address to me (bilbo_the_blogger - at symbol - yahoo.com) will receive a personal, hand-written letter from yours truly, delivered directly to your mailbox by a real, uniformed letter carrier (we used to call them mailmen in a less gender-sensitive time). There's a catch, though: you have to promise to write back. You also have to promise to accept the fact that my handwriting is usually excellent at the top of the first page, but gets worse as it goes along.

Maybe together we can ensure that when Susan Jacoby issues a future reprint of her book, she can point to us as one small spark that tried to rekindle the dying art of correspondence. It was, after all, John Steinbeck who once began a letter to a friend with, "I have owed you this letter for a very long time, but my fingers have avoided the pencil as if it were an old and poisoned tool."

I have plenty of ink and lots of paper. Let's get started.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The World According to Wright

It's Monday again. Sigh.

Here in Northern Virginia, the weather forecast for the week is hazy, very hot, and humid - our usual summer combination. Temperatures today and tomorrow will be in the upper 90's, with humidity approaching 100%. My sweat glands will be working overtime. And yes, Amanda, I'm sure you are sitting there in Palembang, suffering through weather like this every day, but I could use a little sympathy anyhow.

Or a little humor to start off this beastly hot week.

Last month, I looked at the world from the point of view of Rita Rudner, one of my favorite comedians. Today, let's look at her male counterpart - Steven Wright.


Steven Wright is a hysterically funny comedian whose deadpan delivery, Albert Einstein-like appearance, and generally twisted observations of the world never fail to cheer me up. Here are a few Steven Wright-isms:

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.

Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

I intend to live forever - so far, so good.

I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.

"Did you sleep well?" "No, I made a couple of mistakes."

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.

I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape
of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included.

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues
that are in all the other museums.

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.

That's your jump-start for another Monday. We need more Steven Wrights.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Linguistic Curiosities (and Embarrassments)

Last Thursday, Amanda's "Thursday 13" at her blog listed 13 Indonesian words she'd run across that she thought were interesting enough to share. It was a very cool list, and got me to thinking that it was perhaps time I did something interesting, if not particularly useful, with that degree in Linguistics I've been hauling around for the last 35 years. And so, here are a few stories and linguistic nuggets dredged up from the cobwebby recesses of my vast store of useless, but interesting knowledge...

All languages borrow words from each other freely (except French, which does it, but doesn't like to admit it). A fun example: the Russian word for "pencil" is karandash, which derives from the Turkish words kara dash, meaning "black stone." It also was adopted as the pen name of the French satirist and political cartoonist Emmanuel Poire, who called himself "Caran d'Ache;" that name eventually was adopted by a Swiss company which manufactures fine writing instruments.

The famous American writer Mark Twain had his problems with German - his essay "The Awful German Language" is as funny today as it was when he wrote it in 1880...unless you are studying German, in which case it makes much more sense than he may have realized. My German is pretty fluent, although not as good as it was when I was living in Germany and using it every day...Agnes's English is so good that I've gotten pretty linguistically lazy. Nevertheless, German offers many unique pitfalls for the unwary...

Dialects. The German you learn in an American language course is spoken only on the TV news in Germany, if there. People in Berlin speak something totally different from what they speak in Frankfurt, which is radically different from Bavaria or extreme northern Germany. And forget Austria and Switzerland...we visited one of Agnes's friends in Switzerland one time and I didn't understand a word anyone said for three days.

The Dangers of Direct Translation: One evening Agnes and I went to a dinner in honor of a visiting Air Force general, and she met the commander of one of the large units in Berlin. He fell in love with her (easy enough to do) and spent all evening fussing over her, much to the chagrin of his wife. The following week I drove across town to have lunch with her at the Officers' Club at Templehof Air Base, and while we were eating, this particular Colonel came in. He spotted us and zoomed over to our table...ignoring me, he looked warmly at Agnes and asked how she was. She smiled sweetly at him and said, "Good, till now!" You could hear the crash of his face hitting the floor from across the room. Agnes had translated directly from the proper German expression bis jetzt, gut; in German, it means "up till now I'm fine, but I don't know how I'll be in another 20 minutes." In American English, of course, it means, "everything was fine until YOU showed up." I salvaged my career by explaining it to the Colonel; many years later I ran into him again, and he was still laughing about it.

It works the other way, too. One evening I was relating the day's events to Agnes, and told her that one of my friends had asked about her. He'd asked "how's it going with Agnes;" I translated it directly - So-und-so hat mir gefragt, wie's mit dir geht. She was horrified...it turns out that by expressing it that way, I was telling her my friend had asked what it was like to have sex with her. For the record, it's great...but it took a while to sort out the fact that we hadn't been discussing what she was like in bed...

Untranslatable Words. Amanda wrote about the Indonesian word dong, which gets tacked onto the ends of sentences to add emphasis, but doesn't seem to have a meaning of its own. In linguistics, we'd call this a particle, and German has one too - gel (pronounced with a hard g, like "gong"). You don't learn this in school, and it drove me nuts for months as I tried to figure out what it meant and why it was being used all the time.

Idiomatic Meanings. In German, the Dative (indirect object) case is used more frequently than in English for many different things. For instance, if the temperature is too high, you might say, mir ist warm (literally, "it's warm to me"); you learn this in school...but what you don't learn is that if you literally translate the English "I'm warm" as ich bin warm, you're announcing that you are gay (ein warmer Kerl - a warm fellow - is a euphemism for a gay man). Oops.

Well, I could go on in this vein, but the Sunday paper is waiting to be read, dance practice awaits in a few hours, and a brand new upscale grocery store - Wegman's - is opening not far from us later this morning. Yee, hah!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Gas prices are up again, Hillary Clinton is conceding the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama (sort of), unemployment is up, and fatuous blowhards like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Hugo Chavez continue to contribute vast amounts of hot air to the global warming problem.

It's time once again for Cartoon Saturday!

In today's economy, you never quite know what's in store...and sometimes you may not want to know...

The Democrats prepare to pull together to fight the Republicans...

This one is really about Agnes and I...

I love this one because it's so silly...

And I love this one because you have to look twice...but once you do, it's me to a T...


Happy Cartoon Saturday! Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Who Am I?

Well, it looks as if Hillary Clinton has finally bowed to the inevitable and conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. This allows the Democratic party to stop bickering internally and begin bickering at the Republicans, led by John McCain, the presumptive nominee of the GOP.

Yippee.

I hope I didn't embarrass you with that unseemly display of raucous celebratory glee.

If you've been reading my moaning for the last year or so, you know that I am about as disgruntled a voter as can be imagined. Neither of the major parties and none of the minor ones speak for me, none of the candidates are qualified to be president, and I'm looking forward to an election season marked by shouted oversimplifications and a lack of policy specifics. It's sad, but it's the modern American way.

I don't know what to call myself any more. I consider myself an Independent because there are some elements of both the Republican and Democratic philosophies that appeal to me, and very many that don't.

I could be a Republican because I'm a fiscally conservative retired military officer who believes in a strong defense, I'm almost 60, and I believe taxes should be held to the minimum necessary to perform essential functions that "provide for the common defense (and) promote the general welfare." I couldn't be a Republican because the party panders far too much to the single-issue partisans of the Religious Right and the NRA, and is far too deeply in the pockets of Big Business.

I could be a Democrat because I'm a socially liberal individual who believes the government has certain responsibilities to its citizens, that paying taxes is a civic responsibility, that government policies must balance the good of business and the welfare of the citizens, and that prosperity is not inconsistent with protection of the environment. I couldn't be a Democrat because the party takes too many positions on too many issues which are overly simplistic if not downright silly. And who needs a bunch of dumbasses like moveon.org?

I'm not whiny and simplistic enough to be a Democrat, and not arrogant and self-righteous enough to be a Republican.

So who do I vote for?

Barack Obama may be a fine man, but he is utterly unprepared to be president at this point in his life. This has nothing to do with his race; in fact, his race and the possibility of bringing black and white citizens closer together, is about the only thing I believe he has going for him.

John McCain is a true American hero, but he's too closely tied to the failed political and economic policies of George Bush. I admire him, but I can see what eight years of Republican administration has done to the country, and don't think the country can stand four or eight more years of the same.

Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate, isn't even worth mentioning.

I hope you have more luck than I do reconciling your personal beliefs with the available political parties and candidates and the reality of the modern world.

I think I'll move to Australia. Maybe Amanda has a spare room in Brisbane.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo