Posts by Danielle
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Please let Rachmaninoff be playing in the background of this scene. It is, isn't it?
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But I'd strongly recommend picking up a copy of the novel, and considering the splendid example of Mrs Jellyby whose "Telescopic Philanthropy" doesn't require any empathy to be extended to her own family -- or any other close than Africa.
Oh, and Craig, I read the chapter for the first time just now (I'm afraid I can't bear Dickens and his serialising - my attention span is too short. It's a failing on my part, I know), but I have no idea what your point is. She spends so much time on her African charity that her own children are neglected. OK. But what's the relevance to this discussion, (she says thickheadedly)? We're all better off dealing with our own problems and not caring about others' problems...? Or...?
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Perhaps the surprise is that it took so long for the latte-sippers to get to that point too....
Of course, you know I wasn't implying that the poor feel a disproportionate sense of entitlement, but I suppose if you're that way inclined politically...
Anyway, I believe that the latte-sippers in the top tax bracket (I'm a card-carrying member myself) should STFU about their dumb entitlements, frankly. Learn how to cook various nutritious and cheap meals with canned beans, and zip it. There are thousands and thousands of people in this country worse off than us. Let's address their straitened circumstances before having some sort of 'but it's not FAIR' whingefest, shall we?
(I think I might be mentally turning into a crusty old woman who lived through the Great Depression. Get off my lawn!)
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After ten years, the middle classes and the rest of the "rich pricks" in the top tax brackets are quite entitled to ask when they get treated as something other than a group to be exploited.
At this point in our national life, it appears that everyone's 'entitled' and no one's empathetic.
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A friend in America (no, really) just sent me this Heineken ad with music by one Chris Knox.
(I hope this isn't old news to everyone but me!)
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(Bill Maher is the only one I'm surprised by though)
Russell, Bill Maher has sexism oozing pathetically out of every pore, and has been that way for years, since the old Politically Incorrect days. It's a pity, because some of his other material is really cogent and funny, but listening to him talk about women has caused me hours of raging irritation.
This is a delightful diatribe from him on the 'feminisation of America' (I don't know how to embed, because I am lame):
I particularly like his 'some women are really smart!' disclaimer at the beginning. How *magnanimous* of you, Bill! Thanks so much! And all the stuff about how trapped men are in their marriages... very fresh. He might as well be saying 'take my wife, please!' Where are we, the Catskills?
Oh, and his recent 'stance' on women breastfeeding in restaurants? 'Breast-feeding a baby is an intimate act, and I don’t want to watch strangers performing intimate acts.... there’s no principle at work here other than being too lazy to either plan ahead or cover up. It’s not fighting for a right. It’s fighting for the spotlight.... there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called “Hooters."''
Now, women, did you get that? Boobs are for *men to look at*, and nothing else! Feh.
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They re released that on cd with bonus tracks seriously harming the value of the original vinyl version, but kudos for the reference, more obscure would have been...
Yeesh. That whole music geek Obscurity-of-My-Reference-Is-Greater-Than-The-Obscurity-Of-Yours Dick-Measuring-Thing up there? I mean, I'm sure I'm not exempt, since I'm fairly geeky myself, but it kinda gets old, man. I really try to avoid it. I'm not into music in order to try to intimidate other people with My Awesome Knowledge.
That being said though, dude, if I write 'vinyl AK79', that is probably an implication that I already know that it was released on CD. And that I own it. In both formats. KTHXBAI.
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For public servants self-interest doesn't (read shouldn't) come into the equation.
That's all very nice in theory, but if it came down to a choice between eating/paying rent and serving the public good, you could hardly blame anyone for trying to hold on to employment. And I don't think it would have been any different in previous generations, either.
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The memory of National's wholesale disembowelment of the state sector is still fresh, and there's no reason to think they won't try it on again.
I also think 'we won't sell any SOEs in our *first* term' is the kind of statement which should - hopefully - raise the suspicion levels amongst the population at large.
I'm often wrong, though.
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Janis Joplin was ‘busted flat in Baton Rouge’. Lucinda Williams has her doomed character in ‘Lake Charles’ born in Nacogdoches, and taking the Louisiana highway to Lake Pontchartrain.
I forgot to say, Bob: being busted flat in Baton Rouge is a grimly depressing prospect: it's all chain restaurants and fratboys. And Lake Charles holds the dubious distinction of being the first big town across the border from Texas on Interstate 10, so it's wall to wall casinos and gambling Houstonians.
Lake Ponchartrain is, however, rather awe-inspiring. Especially driving for miles and miles across it on that immensely long bridge.