McCormick On Obey Giant

Obey Giant is an enigma that demands explanation. It is primarily street art, and as such it is more than revenant to consider the context of the graffiti movement that stands before it. That is, every time an Obey Giant sticker is put up anywhere 1it is an act of vandalism. An ad that sells nothing and is not paid for is not just a crime against property and place; it is a dangerous and detrimental subversion of our most revered, prolific and universal language: the semiotics of commerce.



Fairey contends, “The knee-jerk reactions to ‘stop racism’ or ‘question authority’ effect a predetermined response.” By instead issuing a far more ambiguous statement, Fairey makes us actually question what lies behind it rather than simply write the whole sentiment off as another once intriguing but now overused concept to which we are desensitized.

Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations

Supplication
Deliverance
Vengeance of a crime
Vengeance taken for kindred upon kindred
Pursuit
Disaster
Falling prey to cruelty or misfortune
Revolt
Daring enterprise
Abduction
Enigma
Obtaining
Enmity of kinsmen
Rivalry of kinsmen
Murderous adultery
Madness
Fatal imprudence
Involuntary crimes of love
Slaying of a kinsman unrecognized
Self-sacrificing for an ideal
Self-sacrifice for kindred
All sacrificed for a passion
Necessity of sacrificing loved ones
Rivalry of superior and inferior
Adultery
Crimes of love
Discovery of the dishonor of a loved one
Obstacles to love
An enemy loved
Ambition
Conflict with a god
Mistaken jealousy
Erroneous judgment
Remorse
Recovery of a lost one
Loss of loved ones

William Lyon Phelps On Courtesy

The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

Michael A. Ledeen On China's Fascism

This is neither socialism nor capitalism; it is the infamous "third way" of the corporate state, first institutionalized in the 1920s by the founder of fascism, Benito Mussolini, then copied by other fascists in Europe.

[...] Like the early fascist regimes, China uses nationalism--not the standard communist slogans of "proletarian internationalism"--to rally the masses. And, like the early fascisms, the rulers of the People's Republic insist that virtue consists in sublimating individual interests to the greater good of the nation.

[...] Unlike communist leaders, who extirpated traditional culture and replaced it with a sterile Marxist-Leninism, the Chinese enthusiastically mine the millennia of Chinese thought to provide legitimacy for their own actions. No socialist realism here! Indeed, this open embrace of ancient Chinese culture is one of the things that has most entranced Western observers. Many believe that a country with such ancient roots will inevitably demonstrate its profound humanity in social and political practice. Yet the fascist leaders of the 1920s and '30s did the same. Mussolini rebuilt Rome to provide a dramatic visual reminder of ancient glory, and Hitler's favorite architect built neoclassical buildings throughout the Third Reich.

Like their European predecessors, the Chinese claim a major role in the world because of their history and culture, not because of their current power, or their scientific or cultural accomplishments. Just like Germany and Italy in the interwar period, China feels betrayed and humiliated, and seeks to avenge historic wounds. China even toys with some of the more bizarre notions of the earlier fascisms, like the program to make the country self-sufficient in wheat production--the same quest for "autarky" that obsessed both Hitler and Mussolini.

Mad-cat On Police Paramilitarism

I blame the paramilitary and militaristic mentality in most police forces. In fact, I would go so far as to say I don't even like the term "police force."

I'm a police officer in Florida. There are several principles I follow which have resulted in my getting only two complaints against me in the past two years.



1. I'm a peace officer, not a law enforcement officer. My goal is the peaceful resolution of conflict, using the law to do so.
2. You cannot insult me. I take offense at nothing while on the job.
3. I will never threaten to arrest someone: I will only warn them that they can be arrested for their actions and will give them several options for peacefully resolving the issue.
4. I will always explain my reasons behind my actions to anyone who asks, so long as safety permits.
5. I will never blindly follow the rules.
6. When in doubt, ask myself if I could talk with my family about what I was about to do to someone without feeling ashamed.

The military mindset is POISON to the civilian police service. If I could do only one thing to improve police relations with the community and performance levels, I would eliminate everything remotely resembling the military. No sergeants, no lieutenants, no military-looking uniforms. Cops should look, think, and act like the civilians they are.

alan_dershowitz (586542) On The Kennewick Man

It has the amazing ability to make anyone associated with it act like an asshole, as represented by white supremacist groups claiming that white people colonized the continent before the Native Americans; and Native American groups attempting to prevent research on the skull by asserting tribal affiliation despite the fact that it doesn't look like any modern Indian, and could not possibly be a former member of any existing tribe.

They object to research possibly in part in fright of an invalidation of their origination claim to the continent, but also because of a general (and somewhat justified, based on Native American history) distrust of the impartiality of white man science.

I am going to go out on a trollish limb here, but their passed-down "history" is unfalsifiable mythological fiction, and just because science has screwed over Indians doesn't mean they have the right to have their fake history uncritically accepted by the scientific community when it comes to Native American origins. they don't know where the skull came from, but at least scientists have the tools to find out, unlike someone just waving their hands and saying "discussion over, it's a Blackfoot and we were still here first" (or whatever.)

By all accounts it was NOT a white man, but it wasn't a modern Indian either, it seems.

Fruit Instructions

Congratulation! You have a fruit!

A fruit is not ready currently. You must prepare a fruit. The color of a fruit is green. The color of a fruit to taste great and put inside your body is red.

-Zack Parsons, from Something Awful

Jean Reno Arrives

Je suis Victor. Nettoyer

(I am Victor. Cleaner)

-La Femme Nikita, directed by Luc Besson

Brazilian Bachelor On Confidence

To get respect, you have to demand it. Not in the old sucker way "YOU RESPECT ME OR ELSE", but by not tolerating bad behavior.

This includes women. Women KNOW that they want a man who is able to decide things with confidence. They may TALK about "repression", but that's just talk.

Never lose your temper. Act like you can take care of anything. In fact, you can. You know you do. You are the only one who have power over your life. Never give it away.

Your woman says: I AM LEAVING YOU!
You: well...ok!

(supposing you're not marriage/co-habitating, cause if you do... well, god bless you!)

You can NOT control NO ONE -- EXCEPT yourself. Remember that.

Brazilian Bachelor

Frost On Good Neighbors

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

-Robert Frost

Christians' Moral Compass

Suppose Omega makes a credible threat that if you ever step inside a bathroom between 7AM and 10AM in the morning, he'll kill you. Would you be panicked by the prospect of Omega withdrawing his threat? Would you cower in existential terror and cry: "If Omega withdraws his threat, then what's to keep me from going to the bathroom?" No; you'd probably be quite relieved at your increased opportunity to, ahem, relieve yourself.

Which is to say: The very fact that a religious person would be afraid of God withdrawing Its threat to punish them for committing murder, shows that they have a revulsion of murder which is independent of whether God punishes murder or not.

The fear of losing a moral compass is itself a moral compass. Indeed, I suspect you are steering by that compass, and that you always have been. As Piers Anthony once said, "Only those with souls worry over whether or not they have them." s/soul/morality/ and the point carries.

-Eliezer Yudkowsky, heavily edited from Overcoming Bias

Dawes On What Doesn't Matter In Therapy

First, they discovered that the therapists' credentials - Ph.D., M.D., or no advanced degree - and experience were unrelated to the efficacy of therapy.

Second, they discovered that the type of therapy given was unrelated to its effectiveness, with the possible exception of behavioral techniques, which seemed superior for well-circumscribed behavioral problems.

They also discovered that length of therapy was unrelated to its success.

-Robyn Dawes quoted by Robin Hanson of Overcoming Bias.

Ell On Dexterity

I'm Good With My Hands

I’m good with my hands
I can make, grow, mend and tend things
I can embroider and darn and crochet – knit, paint and draw
My fine motor control is very fine indeed
One finger tip on my clit, a zero to orgasm high speed chase
I am good with my hands
My slick grip, my swirling, steady stroke
Makes him sigh and moan and groan and spurt great streams
I am very good with my hands

Ell at Wilful Damage

Ell On Bedroom Athleticism

lucky I'm bendy

Krueger On Terrorists

Hassan concluded that “none of them were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying jobs. Two were the sons of millionaires.”

[C]ountries with fewer civil lib­erties and political rights were more likely to be the birthplaces of foreign insurgents. Distance also mattered, with most foreign insurgents com­ing from nearby nations.

The evidence suggests that terrorists care about influencing political outcomes. They are often motivated by geopolitical grievances. To under­stand who joins terrorist organizations, instead of asking who has a low salary and few opportunities, we should ask: Who holds strong political views and is confident enough to try to impose an extrem­ist vision by violent means?

Heavily Edited From Alan Krueger's "What Makes A Terrorist"

Stan Rogers On Hatred

All rights and all wrongs have long since blown away,
For causes are ashes where children lie slain.
Yet the damned U.D.L. and the cruel I.R.A.
Will tomorrow go murdering again.
But no penny of mine will I add to the fray.
"Remember the Boyne!" they will cry out in vain,
For I've given my heart to the place I was born
And forgiven the whole House of Orange
King Billy and the whole House of Orange.

Stan Rogers, "The House Of Orange"
Sample: Amazon

Stan Rogers On Struggle

And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.


Stan Rogers, "The Mary Ellen Carter"
Sample: Amazon

Tom Clancy On Certainty

Admiral Greer: Excuse me, Jack, tell me one thing in life that is absolutely for certain.
Jack Ryan: My daughter's love.

Cyrano de Bergerac On Challenge

I am going to be a storm -a flame-
I need to fight whole armies alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals-
Bring me giants!

Robert Jordon On Longing

I would burn the world and use my soul for tinder to hear her laugh again.

Robert Jordon, The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 44

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds On Flying

You know what the first rule of flyin' is?

[...] Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds.

Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her home.

Dog Trainer On Guilt-Fear

Set boundaries, I tell them, but Chihuahua owners, more than all other dog owners, find boundary-setting impossible. They come back to me week after week with confessions of failure. You don't know the faces she gives me. She's depressed. She won't eat. Well of course your dog is sulking, I tell them. She's been demoted and her ego will now have to match her body size.

The truth is, I love (and sometimes hate) Chihuahua owners for this reason: they are honest about the paralyzing power of guilt. Guilt is short-hand for veiled fear, for the conflicted feeling we get when our needs compete with someone else's. What we want most in the world is to be approved of and loved, and to get that we will very quickly put our needs second. Put simply, we're afraid other people (or our dogs) won't like us if we stand up for ourselves. We're afraid they'll find out we're horrible inside, that we don't deserve anyone's love, except maybe the runt of the metaphoric dog litter, and no, not really, we don't deserve even that. [Ed.: Ephasis Added]

-Leslie Blanco, The Huffington Post

H.G.Wells On Haggling

The idea of cornering a drug struck upon my mind then as a sort of irresponsible monkey trick that no one would ever be permitted to do in reality.... I thought it was part of my uncle's way of talking.

But I've learnt differently since. The whole trend of modern money-making is to foresee something that will presently be needed and put it out of reach, and then to haggle yourself wealthy.

You buy up land upon which people will presently want to build houses, you secure rights that will bar vitally important developments, and so on, and so on.... I will confess that when my uncle talked of cornering quinine, I had a clear impression that any one who contrived to do that would pretty certainly go to jail.

Now I know that any one who could really bring it off would be much more likely to go to the House of Lords!

H.G.Wells, Tono-Bungay

Bega On Polygamous Monogamy

a little bit of Monica in my life
a little bit of Erica by my side
a little bit of Rita is all I need
a little bit of Tina is what I see
a little bit of Sandra in the sun
a little bit of Mary all night long
a little bit of Jessica here I am
a little bit of you makes me your man

Audio Sample: Amazon