moritheil's Xanga

Comment FAIL

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:36:00 GMT

Check this out:

A woman is slain walking in a park, and the comments section opens up with, "Let's not get hysterical about this."

Yeah, I'm feeling the love and respect you wish to show the departed after that. Hey Vivien Tarkirk-Smith, when you die, particularly if it's a bloody and violent spectacle, do you want peoples' first reactions to be, "Well, let's not get hysterical about this?"
Read on . . .

Culture

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:07:00 GMT

Listen to this.

Just listen for a few minutes.

Okay, obviously, it was recorded in a public space. The background noise is pretty obvious. It's also obvious that the violinist knows how to play.

Aside from that, what did you think?

Did you know that that violinist is Joshua Bell, arguably the greatest violinist in the world at this time?
More . . .

Officership

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:44:00 GMT

"I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"

- General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, Truppenführung, 1933

The Iroha

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:59:00 GMT

以呂波耳本へ止
千利奴流乎和加
餘多連曽津祢那
良牟有為能於久
耶万計不己衣天
阿佐伎喩女美之
恵比毛勢須

Even blooming flowers
Will eventually fade
Even this world
Is not eternal
The mountains of vanity:
Cross them today
And superficial dreams
Shall no longer delude you

Cliche Day

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:50:49 GMT

It's Cliche Day! Are you avoiding it like the plague?

Let the Right One In: a Meta-review

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:54:30 GMT

Mr_faust said, "Fuck you, Owen."

I was intrigued. I read the link, and I'm forced to agree: Owen Gleiberman, possibly through no fault of his own, has not grasped the point of Let the Right One In. Let me show you two quotes from his review:

Where, I want to know, in all this girl/boy, normal/vampire, angel/demon spiritual diddling is the heat, the confusion, even the anguish of young love?

And, sorry, I still think it lacks coherence. Why do a bunch of cats turn demonic and attack a woman who has been attacked by a vampire? And why the sudden, excessive carnage of the swimming-pool massacre?

Are you confused or not, Owen Gleiberman?

Yes. You are confused.

And this is a point of the movie: the confusion of young love isn't confusion about love exclusively. It's confusion about everything in life. Why do things appear to happen suddenly? Because when you're young you have no clue about how to unravel cause and effect, intent and circumstance, mistake and resulting cock-up. When you are young things simply happen.
Read on . . .

Oíche Shamhna

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:05:00 GMT

Samhain ("summer's end", from sam meaning "summer" and fuin meaning "end") is a festival held on October 31–November 1 in Gaelic cultures. A harvest festival with ancient roots in Celtic paganism, it was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and continued to be celebrated in late medieval times.

Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half". Some scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year. The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.

The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks was an attempt to copy the evil spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were represented by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white. Candle lanterns carved from turnips were part of the traditional festival. Large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.

-- Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Death Pumpkin

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:02:00 GMT

The commander was breathless, nervous. Things were not going as planned and he had been summoned to give an accounting to his merciless lord.

"Report."

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He resisted the urge to wipe it away. "My lord . . . Xanga . . . Xanga is not getting in the Halloween spirit!"

"Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them."

End the Hate

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:12:40 GMT

In Iowa, a man was assaulted simply for being who he was. This is a troubling crime, all the more so for coming a generation after America fought hard so that all its people could be free.

From the Press-Citizen:

The victim was in the process or ordering food when a man came up to him, accused the victim of being a zombie, then punched the victim in the eye.

When the victim attempted to use his cell phone to call police, the assailant hit him again, this time breaking the victim's nose. The assailant then fled out the back door of the restaurant.

My friends, I have a dream. Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of humanity and the corpses of humanity will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood, and not consume each other.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Iowa, a state freezing with the bitter chill of injustice, shivering with the coldness of indifference, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the state of their animation but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Florida, with its vicious animists, with its universities' lips dripping with the words of ZBSD and nullification; one day right there in Florida, little zombie boys and little zombie girls will be able to join hands with little living boys and living girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all the Creator's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, living and unliving, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Zombie spiritual, "Braaaaaains! Braaaaaaains! Braaaains, Braaaaaaaains!"

No True Christian

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:36:00 GMT

I see a lot of argument over assertions like, "No true Christian would do that."

Theologically, the definition of a Christian involves true faith, and true faith is supposed to be seen via actions. Sociologically, the definition of a Christian involves going to church. Which is the "correct" definition? Using the latter definition means that the No True Scotsman fallacy is involved; using the former, saying someone is not a "true Christian" is actually a meaningful statement, just as "no true vegetarian would eat meat" is a meaningful statement.

This isn't a trivial choice, by the way: religion scholars and the religious have been arguing over the correct definition of terms like Christian for about as long as there has been any sociological study of religion as a field. In the end, as long as people have difficulty being what they desire to be, perhaps that gap will always remain.