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Comments Posted By whatsthatsound

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Time Out for O/T – Vol. 16

BSM, thank you for your respectful reply. I have to admit that to a certain extent, I agree with you completely regarding your comments about freedom to express.

Personally, I didn’t think your first comment was out of bounds. You expressed an opinion, very pointedly and without niceties. That is fine, if a little boorish (that much I suspect you are willing to concede). But what I take issue with is how you continually, and yes, unrepentantly, continued to defend your comment, and the opinion behind it, without acknowledging that you offended others here. If you had simply written something along the lines of, “Well, I’m sorry that by coming on so strongly I hurt some feelings, but I simply feel that….” everyone here, including the author, would have understood, I feel.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 7:27 pm

Somehow I just have a really hard time imagining Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the leader of France. Can you imagine his inaugural speech?

In France today, we face many problems. We will rape them all! We will have our way with unemployment! We’ll pull down its pants and show it who’s boss! I will force myself upon the unions and put them in their place! I will……

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 2:53 pm

bito, about life and such, confessedly I know very little. But in my experience, when someone tags on a line about legalizing marijuana at the end of a statement, it’s usually meant to be humorous.
🙂

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 3:41 am

Well said, cap’n. And I would also add that there is generally a great deal of correlation between how one views the world and the types of experiences one has.

It is important to keep in mind that our eyes are just two little, mostly covered, golf-ball shaped organs, and yet with them we can see skyscrapers, mountains, and throngs of half a million, etc. The world is bigger than our perception of it.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 2:20 am

Jkk, agree on both counts, but the fast cutting just drives me BONKERS! Are you a Boomer, or Gen X? I think that may be the dividing line.
Or possibly it’s because I’m a guy. When I see a shapely behind, I WANNA FOCUS ON IT, FERCRYINOUTLOUD!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 2:08 am

bito, I think you’re taking AD’s comment a bit too seriously, there.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 2:03 am

I like how the image doesn’t move. 🙂
Nice music, but a little too John Williams-y for my tastes.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 6:24 pm

😉

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 5:46 pm

Thanks Caru. I think you’re even a tad younger than my daughter.

You guys are weird, no offense.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 5:37 pm

Thanks for your input. You’re right about the one you posted. Eyes are still trying to situate themselves into their sockets. I think the thing about G’s Gen is, because they keep switching from girl to girl, I notice it more than with the one you posted. Because it’s the same singer, you can at least do a sort of “composite reconstruction” of what she looks like.

Boy, do I hope it’s a phase. I realize I’m not exactly the intended audience for these girls, but still, they have looks that make them worth focusing on. 🙂

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 5:36 pm

THE YOUNG ARE NOT LIKE US
My daughter has recently become a big fan of this Korean girl group, “Girl’s Generation”, and has shared some of their videos with me. The songs are fairly decent pop, and the ladies are lovely, but I can’t watch these videos! They cut as soon as your eye begins to focus. I’ve never had a more vexing and frustrating video watching experience. So, I’m wondering…are our brains changing from all this MTV type editing? Are younger people able to “slow down” their focus and see something that an old geezer like me can’t? Please watch as much as you can, and tell me what you think

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 5:00 pm

Very eloquent and inspiring, AD. I recommend you expand that into an article.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 4:40 pm

Cats, caterpillars…..they all really need to learn their manners from Carolyn Bourne, if you ask me.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 3, 2011 @ 11:58 am

My herb garden is proving to be entirely too popular with the local crawlies. So recently it has been a mad rush to pluck and use my sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, basil and Italian celery before the unwelcome guests munch them down to nothing. So today I made a “tabouleh” with couscous, a saute of eggplant, peppers zuchinni and sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and iced herb tea.

Great eating. Take that, caterpillars!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 3, 2011 @ 5:59 am

bito, steal away, mon ami! But I like it too, so I just may use it as the title of an essay.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 9:01 pm

It’s so obscene it should be called “cornography”.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 8:30 pm

It’s not your grandpa’s farm anymore, kes.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 7:57 pm

Those “farmers” in Iowa are predominately gigantic agri-business megafarms, denuding the whole region’s soils of nutrients because it is not profitable to allow land to lay fallow and rejuvenate itself. One cannot be the “best” farmer and at the same time contribute to desertification, seems to me.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 7:15 pm

Me too. I’ve never poked back. I consider the whole thing a tad vulgar.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 7:12 pm

Personality Test:
When someone “pokes” you on Facebook, what part of your body do you imagine being poked?

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 6:37 pm

K, I have a feeling she’s getting that advice from a lot of people these days.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 6:12 pm

Thanks, K. I think Carolyn Bourne and the young lady that did the “Asians in the library” video have a tad more in common than either one of them would care to admit.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 6:06 pm

Yeah, this shrimp business definitely needs to be sorted out. Here’s what I imagine Emily Post would say,

“If one of your guests makes inane stabs at your quiz question which only reveals that he knows absolutely nothing about Cajun cooking, you must nevertheless treat each flailing guess as if it were uttered by King Solomon, and award a shrimp for each one when serving gumbo, even if it requires you to dredge the ocean floor”.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 5:35 pm

Hi kes,
Sorry I missed that. I’ll look for that thread now, on my way to picking up my bowl of gumbo from the MB Maestress.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 5:23 pm

I hope it’s okay to c&p this wonderful comment from an anonymous poster to The Telegraph. There is a hoo-haw in Britain now about a snooty future mother-in-law’s email to her son’s slobbish fiance. From what can be gathered, clearly both parties are in the wrong. Hey, everybody on the planet has some growing up to do, so I hope they all find a way to work this out. But this comment, I think, is wonderful:

Mrs. Bourne is hilarious in her absolute lack of knowledge
on the difference between manners and etiquette.
Etiquette, a concept
originating from the French, is the conforming to a prescribed code of social
behaviour, such as using the correct cutlery. Manners refer to the ability to
make those in the immediate vicinity feel comfortable, best demonstrated by
King Edward VII drinking from the finger bowl after a fellow diner had made the
mistake of doing so.
Having good manners is having the ability to refrain from
pointing out lapses in etiquette. I would question the right of anyone who does
not know this to call themselves either educated or in the possession of good
manners.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 2, 2011 @ 4:58 pm

Casey Anthony: Guilty or Not Guilty?

I get where you’re coming from, KQ. But I still think that most of the broader attributes of the Scandinavian model WOULD work, and be accepted, by the majority of Americans in every state, if it were given a chance to work.

First of all, the notion that a nations economics exist to enrich the lives of the PEOPLE, rather than people existing to keep the economy rolling along, is something that only those at the very top would object to. Swedish CEOs make more than their employees, but not 400 times more.

Second, a butter economy rather than a guns one. Scandinavians don’t love to pay taxes, but for the most part they willingly allow the government to take the lion’s share of what they earn because they see it working as the “nanny state” – the health care, the daycare provisions, the maternity leave provisions, etc. If you’re a parent in Sweden or Norway, you are lucky. The government will actually HELP you raise your child, instead of telling you, “You’re pretty much on your own. If you can’t afford college for your kid, why not let him join the military? We’ll take care of him.”

A recognition that Culture is part of life. It sounds absolutely insane to the Rand-influenced mindset of Rushbots, but yes, in Sweden and Norway, artists are fully subsidized. In the cold, hard, crass world of pure commerce/economics, those of us who choose creative fields are nearly guaranteed a life of struggle. And yet, paradoxically, it is the artists and creators who, collectively, leave the greatest impact on culture. So, by recognizing the inherent value of Art, to a SOCIETY, not an ECONOMY, the Scandinavian model makes it possible for its creators to create, instead of squeeze creative time in between the other jobs one has to do in order to survive. At a societal, rather than individual level, this actually makes sense, though it seems weird to those who believe that only things that sell have value.

But like I wrote to Kes, the model is far from perfect, and needs to be adjusted. I just feel that it should be viewed as a “best practices” model that every other government can learn from and adopt.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 9:00 pm

KQ, I don’t have a reply button down below, so placing this up top. I have never lived in any Scandinavian country, though often wish I had been born there. I’ve lived in New York, the S.F. Bay Area and Tokyo, all very cosmopolitan areas so I have talked to and made friends with numerous Swedes, Norwegians, etc. My view is that their “nanny state” is the closest thing on earth to a nation-sized entity putting the welfare of its people first, ahead of dog-eat-dog economic concerns.

As one person commented on an article comparing the “Nordic Model” with the Irish Model, “people live in societies, not economies”.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 5, 2011 @ 2:29 am

I just never want to see two giant Palmetto Bugs doing the dirty in mid-flight!

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 3:59 pm

kes, amen on that. Day care is better in Japan. But what should really happen is that every country should adopt the Scandinavian model. Countries need to just swallow their pride and say, “hey, here’s a group of countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland) that are doing things better, legislatively, socially, economically, etc., better than the rest of us”, and then DO that. Is that so hard? With other things, we do that. When Henry Ford came up with assembly line production, other companies noticed that. And COPIED it. So that’s what we need to do, at a governmental level. Just admit that, though not perfect, the Scandinavian model is the best social system in the world for large, nation-sized, populations. And then ADOPT that. So much misery would disappear if we did that. And then we’d, as a species, come up with something even BETTER.

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 4:37 am

um…..dragonflies?

» Posted By whatsthatsound On July 4, 2011 @ 1:29 am