To a certain stratum of our intelligentsia, you’re supposed to believe in God like you believe in continental drift, or the tides, or the yearly reappearance of Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s. The idea that it’s a two-way conversation strikes many as nonsense, proof that we’re dealing with someone two steps removed from worshipping the moon. I don’t say this as someone who gets daily briefings from the Big Guy Upstairs; for whatever reason, I’ve never felt as if God had me on speed dial. This hasn’t influenced my thoughts about religion in the least, believe it or not. I don’t need Carl Sagan showing up at my door to believe there are billions and billions of stars.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2004-10-18.
December 1, 2019
QotD: Religious belief
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November 28, 2019
QotD: The native view of the Pilgrims
Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, 2006.
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November 25, 2019
YouTube vs Grey: A Ballad of Accidental Suspension
CGP Grey
Published 24 Nov 2019Join my email list: http://www.cgpgrey.com/email
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November 24, 2019
What every shared office kitchen is like
Alistair Dabbs describes most office kitchens I’ve encountered over my career:
Talking of timeslip, there is a wormhole in every shared office kitchen. I’ve experienced it at each of my clients’ premises so I guess it may be true everywhere.
When I arrive early in the morning, non-specific-gender-fascist swot that I am, I stride past the kitchen or kitchenette, admiring how spotless and twinkly it is from the deft attentions of the overnight cleaning contractors. Not for long.
It only takes a few seconds to pick my hot-desk location for the day since it’s always the same one, i.e. the only hot-desk not already baggsied by someone else the night before by leaving a spare jacket/cardigan/set of false teeth hanging on the back of the chair, i.e. the shitty desk next to the fire exit door that doesn’t quite shut properly and lets the weather in.
Pausing only a moment to brush away the mini snowdrift that has accumulated next to the power block, I put down my backpack and head straight back to the kitchen to brew up some chai.
When I get there, barely a minute after I passed it earlier, the kitchen has transformed into a disaster zone. Spilt milk, coffee and various puddles of water cover every level surface. Brown liquid of different shades are splattered artistically across the walls. The floor is carpeted with a layer of granulated sugar and broken mug handles which crunch unpleasantly underfoot.
Torn cardboard boxes and heaps of scrunched sheets of kitchen towel are arranged around the edge of the vast but glaringly empty dustbin. A cupboard door is swinging open on its only remaining hinge. The cutlery drawer has been pulled out and is now face-down in the sink. The kettle is on its side. The microwave is on fire. Where the dishwasher used to be is now a smouldering hole in the floor.
No worries, the cleaners will be back overnight to put it all shipshape again, wipe down the surfaces and shovel away any charred body parts.
As I have mused in this column on previous occasions, it makes one wonder what people’s houses must be like if their workplace kitchen etiquette extends to the personal domicile as well. This isn’t meant as a “bah dropping standards etc” whinge but a genuine interest in what the otherwise sane and talented individuals I meet in offices get up to in the privacy of their own homes.
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November 23, 2019
History Summarized: Ireland
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 22 Nov 2019Get 3 months of Audible for just $6.95 a month — that’s more than half off the regular price. Choose 1 audiobook and 2 Audible Originals absolutely free. Visit http://www.audible.com/overlysarcastic or text “
overlysarcastic” to 500 500.While the rest of Europe was flailing aimlessly through the Dark Ages, Ireland was both preserving the ancient world and setting the stage for the Medieval Period. Then England showed up.
Sources & Further Reading:
How the Irish Saved Civilization: https://www.audible.com/pd/How-the-Ir…
Modern Ireland: 1600 — 1972 by R.F. FosterMusic from https://filmmusic.io
“Marked”, “Traveler”, “God Rest Ye Merry Celtishmen” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…)Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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November 17, 2019
Mark Steyn on the post-Basil-Fawlty John Cleese
He’s trying fairly hard not to turn into one or another of the stock characters he’s played over the years:
John Cleese at the Byline Festival, 2017.
Photo by Raphael Moran via Wikimedia Commons.
“John was a boy that kept to himself,” recalled Mrs Hicks, Reg and Muriel Cleese’s next-door neighbor in Totnes in Devon, deploying the formulation traditionally reserved for the landladies of suburban serial killers. “I suppose he was all right with his Cambridge people, but us being country folk he wouldn’t say very much. At one time I looked after John for a couple of days and did his bedroom when his parents were away. He was writing something on his desk at the time. Course I didn’t look at it, but it was sarcastic sort of stuff about Churchill. I do often wonder what happened to him.”
Listening to Mrs Hicks, you appreciate the particular challenge of comedy writing – for who could ever improve on that? Nonetheless, she’s not the only one to wonder what’s happened to John Cleese. He turned eighty a couple of weeks back, and the jubilations were more muted than one might once have expected. My local PBS station still shows Fawlty Towers as part of its Britcom lineup, but Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, bemoans that Cleese has now turned into Basil Fawlty lui-même. Younger “comics” regret that the a great comedic talent is now the pub bore he played in his youth.
And why would that be? Well, after supporting Brexit, he moved to Nevis in the British West Indies and announced that the imperial metropolis was “not really an English city anymore”. Mayor Khan replied that “Londoners know that our diversity is our greatest strength” – although, strong as it is, it doesn’t seem much use during a knife attack. During the ensuing Twitterstorm, an opposing Tweeter declared that “I can’t stand Englishness”, and Cleese wistfully responded:
I suspect I should apologise for my affection for the Englishness of my upbringing. But in some ways I found it calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid, and less money-oriented than the one that is replacing it.
The Two-Minutes Tweet-Hate rampaged on, and Cleese retreated to the charms of his post-colonial backwater:
Nevis has excellent race relations, a very well educated population, no sign of political correctness… conscientious lawyers, a relaxed and humorous life style, a deep love of cricket, and a complete lack of knife crime …and the icing on the cake is that Nevis is not the world centre for Russian dirty money laundering…
I think it’s legitimate to prefer one culture to another. For example, I prefer cultures that do not tolerate female genital mutilation. Will this be considered racist by all those who hover, eagerly hoping that someone will offend them?
Is this the room for an argument? Not anymore. There are just things you’re not meant to bring up, lest the hoverers pounce.
As it happens, I agree with almost all of the above. But then I always have. It’s odder to hear it from Cleese. In essence, he misses the England of Mrs Hicks, of couples called Reg and Muriel, of saloon-bar majors, bowler-hatted civil servants, Church of England vicars, socially insecure lower-middle-class hoteliers and all the other stock types of a now vanished Albion he mocked at the height of his celebrity. The counterculture triumphed so totally that there is no longer a culture to counter, and the void of “diversity” makes London feel, even overlooking the stabbings and clitoridectomies, just like a large version of every other cookie-cutter multiculti western city.
“I know they were very disappointed with John,” Mrs Hicks told Cleese’s biographer Jonathan Margolis. “Muriel was so excited when she came in here and said John had passed his exams at Cambridge. They thought he was going to be a solicitor, and then he fell in with David Frost and that was it.”
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November 16, 2019
QotD: Millennials as barbarians invading our civilization
Every nation believes its own customs and habits are the best, Herodotus said, and you would have to be nuts to dismiss those prejudices as though they were somehow objectively wrong. (I grant that this is a free translation, but he said it, and it is one of the intellectual breakthroughs with which we associate the Greeks.) As with nations, so it is with generations. The formative experiences, inherited expectations, and learned fears of somebody born in 1985 are hardly less different from mine than a foreigner’s would be.
If I say that my attitude toward millennials is that they are barbarians, I am asking for trouble, but I must insist on being understood: it is only that they are persons whose habits, prejudices, and values are foreign, formed by a different set of events and influences — not that they are inferior. In the right mood I can even be persuaded that their actual knowledge is simply of a qualitatively different character, rather than simply being more meagre because they have lived less long.
Colby Cosh, “‘Millennial’ gets used as an insult. But millennials aren’t actually inferior”, National Post, 2017-10-25.
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November 15, 2019
Shakespeare Summarized: Romeo And Juliet
Overly Sarcastic Productions
27 April 2014Yeah, sorry. I don’t like this play very much. I know it’s a classic, I know it inspired countless other love stories… I… I can’t help it. It’s just too funny. I’m sorry if you actually thought this play was tragic, because I did not respect your opinion here at ALL.
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November 14, 2019
QotD: Memory
Eric Hoffer, “Thoughts of Eric Hoffer”, New York Times Magazine, 1971-04-25.
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November 10, 2019
History-Makers: Machiavelli
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 8 Nov 2019If I could have a conversation with any person in History, it’s Machiavelli. Easy. And I wouldn’t even have to do anything, I’d just say “So, tell me about Rome” and watch the fireworks. In the meantime, I’ll settle for playing Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and liberating Roma with my boy Niccolò.
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QotD: Dunning-Kruger Club
A friend mentioned that it was ignorant bro stuff like this that was causing him to seek out other hobbies, to which I ruefully commented that every hobby has its equivalent; guns and shooting aren’t unique.
And then someone else dropped the bomb:
“[Name Redacted], if you don’t recognize this behavior in other hobbies, it’s because you’re the one doing it.”
Ouch.
But the First Rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is “You don’t know that you’re in Dunning-Kruger Club.”
Tamara “Tam Slick” Keel, “The First Rule of Dunning-Kruger Club…”, View from the porch, 2019-09-30.
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November 8, 2019
Shakespeare Summarized: Macbeth
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 12 April 2014Here it is! The Scottish Play. The bloodiest of the bloody. An epic tale of magic, madness and stabbing. It’s so gory, even Tarantino thinks it’s over the top.
Making it funny was pretty tough.
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November 7, 2019
QotD: Evolved sexual differences
Women co-evolved to try to make themselves look reproductively hot, though that’s not how we think of it. […] Because men are turned on by disembodied photos of boobs, butts, and coochies, they’re quick to pull down their pants, click their cameraphone, and text some woman they just met a close-up of their zipperwurst. Really bad idea.
Men who’ve done this should pick up a Harlequin romance, which is basically porn for women (from the ravishing by some hot gazillionaire to the final commitment-gasm).
See any photo spreads of male crotch shots tucked in there anywhere, boys?
This is not an error of omission. Women aren’t fantasizing about seeing your willy; they’re fantasizing that somebody in the royal family will pluck them out of suburbia and marry them in Westminster Abbey.
Amy Alkon, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck, 2014.
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November 6, 2019
Sage words from Zim Tzu
The National Football League has certain rules and requirements of the head coaches of all the teams, including a certain amount of mandatory contact with … ugh! … the media. Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer follows these rules — probably unwillingly, and certainly without much enjoyment or enthusiasm — but generally guards his tongue very carefully, not giving out any more information than he absolutely has to and couching that information in ways that are obscure and often inscrutable to the uninitiated media schlub or everyday fan. Fortunately, the Daily Norseman has on their staff Ted Glover, the world’s leading Zimmerologist, who can unwrap the verbal enigmas and decrypt the encoded truth and share with true Vikings fans:
Zim Tzu, image by Eric Thompson, Daily Norseman.
The Vikings warrior poet coach dispenses his words of wisdom
ED NOTE: This has bad words. None of the other things we write on here do, but this one does. It seems to be a popular bit, so until the law catches up with me, I’m going to keep doing it. Thanks for understanding, and thanks for not reading and not letting your kids read it if bad language isn’t your thing. Hope you enjoy the rest of our articles—Ted
Warrior poets don’t have time for deep, philosophical conversations once they’re in the maelstrom of conflict. You need accurate information, the lay of the land, and then you must make a decision. Good or bad, decisions must be made, because indecision is certain death. Good decisions could still end up with a bad result, for a number of reasons. Poor execution, faulty equipment, any number of things. But at least you give yourself the best chance of success.
And bad decisions? Bad decisions are more than likely going to result in your demise, but fuck it, at least go out with your boots on. And sometimes, even a bad decision can turn out okay with a stroke of luck, or poor execution of your adversary. And when that happens you feel invincible. Glory or death, bay.
Glory or death. Pain is temporary, chicks dig scars, but glory is forever. Unless you really fuck things up and lose, then you’re just a loser looking for answers, and you vow to not fuck things up like that again.
Because you are Zim Tzu, Scalper of the Capital, True King Of The Jungle, Potentate Of Those Who Eat Feces, The Biggest Apple, Commodore Of Outlaw Sailors, Master Falconer, The Once And Future King In The North, High Septon Of Eagan, Lord Commander Of The Iron Range And Twin Cities, Master Of Fortress TCO, Honorary Elder Of Mankato and Protector Of The Realm.
And when you need to explain setbacks, you’ll need help discussing things, because the proletariat has no concept of the shit you’ve gone through, man. None. So you need someone* to take your words and turn them into language that folks understand.**
You’re welcome.***
*Look, you don’t need anyone to help you figure this out. You’re a Vikings fan. Just shut up, drink, and bury those goddamn feelings.
**This whole post is incomprehensible bullshit. All the answers are made up, by me, because I need an outlet to vent and meth, apparently, is frowned upon in my house.
***Seriously, enjoy. Glad you guys like these remarkably bad interpretations of Zimmer’s press conferences.
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November 2, 2019
QotD: Business writing
[…]
OK, the most consistent mistake … not mistake, but inefficiency of business writing — and it was very consistent — is the absolute refusal on the part of the writer to tell you right away what message he or she is trying to deliver. I used to say to them, “The most important thing you have to say should be in the first sentence.” And “Oh, no, you can’t. I’m an engineer. We did a 10-year study, this is way too complicated.”
And inevitably, they were wrong. Inevitably, if they really thought about it, they were able to, in one sentence, summarize why it was really important. But they refused to do that because the way they found out was by spending 10 years of study and all this data and everything, and that’s the way they wanted everyone to look at what they did. They wanted their supervisors to go plowing through all they had done to come to this brilliant conclusion that they had come to.
COWEN: Through their history, through their thought patterns.
Drag everybody through it. And it was the one thing the newspaper people were taught to do that made more sense. You don’t have your reader’s attention very long, so get to the point. I found it was very difficult to get even really smart businesspeople to get to the point. Sometimes it was because they really couldn’t tell you what the point was.
What I wanted to say, but rarely felt comfortable saying, was, “If you don’t know what the point is, then you can’t really write this report.” But it was always too complicated for a layperson like me to understand. That was the way they did it. I was being hired by their bosses to tell them, “No, we want you to write clearly, and we want you to get to the point.”
COWEN: And why were they, at this meta level, resistant to your message?
Because nobody else was doing it. When I would start the class, I’d have 32 people in the class typically, and when they would turn in all their samples of writing, every one of them wrote the same way. They all wrote business-ese writing. This is my parody of it, but it was, “Enclosed please find the enclosed enclosure.” That kind of formal, nonsensical, meaningless flow of words. Somewhere in there would be something important, something significant, or maybe not.
Dave Barry, interviewed by Tyler Cowan in “Dave Barry on Humor, Writing, and Life as a Florida Man”, Medium, 2017-08-16.
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