Move, Eat, Learn

These are worth watching.  All three.  Either via the embeds below, or directly through their Vimeo post.

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films.....

= a trip of a lifetime.

move, learn, eat

Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.


LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.


EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Humanities Degrees and Jobs

Reflections on the reality of searching for a job with a degree in the humanities:

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/mama_phd/more_on_the_humanities_and_the_marketplace

Something my better half is struggling with at the moment.  The writer’s response to a solicitation for donation from her alma mater will make you smile:

“As all of the benefits you gave me were intangible, I assume you understand and appreciate the value of my sincere gratitude, in lieu of a financial contribution.”

--"Isn't it pretty to think so." --EH

Did You Know 4.0

My favorite thing about this could be that at the end, they list the sources. Enjoy.

Let's All Twitter from Iran

Based on the following hint from a post over at Chap's place:

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

TheyRodeOn will be Twittering from Iran for a while.

Kings Firecrackers

If these girls don't make you smile, you need help. The audience at the Naval Academy was clearly impressed.

The Big Picture: Human Landscapes

The Boston Globe's Big Picture just continues to be one of the coolest things going. From today's:

The Economics of Cows

You all need a laugh. Trust me.

It was Barry's post today, over at Enrevanche that turned me on to this. The problem with excerpting some little funny part from a bigger funny post is that, usually, people just read what you post and call it a day.

I'm not going to post any excerpt at all. I'm going to tell you, GO HERE. That's the link for the original post from which Barry borrows only a snippet (on the Royal Bank of Scotland model of Venture Capitalism). Start reading. Laugh. No, wait! Go to the bathroom first. Then start reading. By the time I got to New Zealand, I was crying.

Enjoy.

On more time: GO HERE. You will not be sorry.

Parkour

It seems today is my day to be astonished by the physical abilities of others. The video below comes from my friend Phil's blog, The Archer Pelican, where you'll find a fuller explanation of the video and the skill. I used to believe this sort of stuff was all done with wires. Wow.

Danny MacAskill: Zen and the Art of Bicycle Riding

If you can stop watching this once you start, you're a stronger viewer than I. Simply amazing.



Here's the info straight from the YouTube posting:

Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike.

I keep hearing Chevy Chase saying, "Be the [bike] Danny."

Swat-a-Litterbug

We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is people tossing their cigarette butts, usually still burning, out the window of their cars. Well now, according to this article from the Wilmington Star News, you can do something about that, at least in North Carolina:

Some motorists and car passengers in our area might benefit from a letter from the colonel of the N.C. State Highway Patrol.

That’s what happens when alert witnesses report litterbugs to the state through its Swat-A-Litterbug program. The offenders get a letter, informing them that someone spotted them littering, what they did was illegal and that fines range from $250 to $2,000 and can double on subsequent convictions. It’s signed by the colonel.

And according to the N.C. Department of Transportation, more people are tattling. More than 9,600 littering reports were made to the Swat-A-Litterbug program in 2008, up 23 percent from 7,800 in 2007.

Now I'm not sure how many people this will actually deter from littering, but I know it'll make me feel better if I can arrange that sort of correspondence for them. It'll be the next best thing to one of the best ideas George Carlin ever had for handling bad drivers. (And if anyone can find a video or audio of the a--hole flags routine, I'll be happy to post a link. Some of you know what I'm talking about.)

Just in case you feel your inner police informant vibrating in harmony, here's the rest that you need to know:

The Swat-A-Litterbug program is administered by DOT’s Office of Beautification Programs and the Highway Patrol. If you [spot] someone littering from a vehicle, you can make a report through the mail, over the phone at 1-877-DOT-4YOU or online (the preferred method) at www.ncdot.gov/~beautification. Mail-in cards can be obtained by calling 1-800-331-5864. To make a report, you need the vehicle’s license plate number, date and time of the incident, street name, city, county and a description of the offense.

Enjoy.

Australia's Brushfires

A few weeks ago, I posted a link to photos of London at night, hosted on Boston's The Big Picture. These photos of the brush fires in Australia are just as striking. To get an idea of the temperatures involved when the fire sweeps by, just look at the streams of molten metal that run away from what were once the alloy wheels of the cars caught in the firestorms.

Nodding Off

When I'm up this late writing a lit test for the morrow, I am easily entertained. Enjoy.

London at Night

Back in the day, when I was still actually flying for a living, (okay, may as well admit before Buzzard reminds me, it was more, sort of, back in the last century) I used to love flying at night. There is a beauty to the populated and artificially lighted world, seen from above, that people who live and work on the ground every day rarely get to behold. Really, night or day, one can do worse than earning a living five or six miles above the earth. That part of the Air Force, I miss.

And just so you know what caused this moment of nostalgia, you'll find some stunningly beautiful photographs of London at night, here.

Enjoy.

Which Philosopher Do You Agree With?

Over at The Archer Pelican, Phil posted the results of a survey a few days ago that purported to display a person's affinity for the philosophies of the better known Western thinkers. I pointed Phil's post out to a few friends who had recently posted a video of a Monty Python gig about philosophers and beer (here and here). The three posts seemed to complement one another.

The result was yet another post over at Buck's place and one of those threads that surprises you with its longevity and enthusiasm.

Lest I be guilty of Buck's accusation of stirring the pot and running (though God knows I'm not above that), I am finally submitting my own results to one of the quizzes.

If you're interested, you can find the quiz above here.

I could not, however, bring myself to take the other quiz which my colleagues submitted to. That quiz opens with the following paragraph, riddled with such egregious spelling errors that I could barely proceed.

Great minds think diffrently. The history of western philosophy alone can prove this. I hope this quiz will intrest you in philosophy, possibly provoking you to read some of the philosophers in this quiz. If not, just have fun.

I hope someone can "intrest" the author of the quiz in some spell check software soon. Thinking differently is one thing; spelling differently, "diffrently" . . . well, that's another subject entirely.

Nonetheless, I did at least begin the quiz, but I couldn't get past question 7:

7. Art...
satisfies the human impulse for immitation and harmony.
unless it dipicts Truth, is harmfull and delusive.
stands on it's own as immortal and trancendent.
is the most noble goal of man.
is the idealized representation of fact.

YGTBFKM! I can demonstrate the chances that the person who put this quiz together can even define "philosophy," let alone tell you which philosopher believes what, with a snowball in one hand and a propane torch in the other (which would explain why Phil's results from that quiz were at complete odds with the other two quizzes he took). I stopped there. I would like to take the quiz, just for curiosity's sake, but I kant bring myself to do it. (And yeah, the pronunciation is wrong in that slot, but do you really think the object of the jab is likely to know?)

Peace ya'll.

"Who is John Galt?"

Ayn Rand is one of the few authors whose works can make something by Leon Uris look like a quick read. On my bookshelf, few works other than Boswell's, Life of Johnson can compete with hers for the breadth of their spine. I was, until sometime in 2003, what Stephen Moore calls below, a "virgin." That was the year that a friend recommended Rand to me. He would have been one of those who responded to the Library of Congress survey that her work had changed his life. He is, unless I'm mistaken, a subscriber to this blog, though he has never left a comment.

I must confess though, that my reaction to her work was likely colored by the lenses of an English professor. Her characters are all types. So much so that she almost may as well have given them names like those of Bunyan and just made it an allegory outright. As I remember it, the absolute purity with which each character represented his or her philosophical ideal frequently made the willing suspension of disbelief more challenging than necessary.

And yet, I also remember agreeing with the philosophy itself, with the ideas that Rand set out to expound. But I had forgotten how apt they were to our current times. It took Stephen Moore, writing in The Wall Street Journal, to remind me of that:

Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."

As always, the whole essay by Moore ("Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years") is worth the read.

One cannot but wonder who will be our John Galt.

Hat tip: JPL

Neologism Contest

This list is years old now, I think, but still fun to review. I take no responsibility for the accuracy or lack thereof of the introductory explanations, I just think the words are fun.

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words. The winners :

1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.) impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. This year's winners:

1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
3. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
4. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
5. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
6. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.
7. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
8. Karmageddon (n) It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
9.Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
10. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.
11. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Equine Medicine

It was funny as a cartoon, and funny as a re-enactment.

You can find more here.

Hat tip: Chap

A Conversation: "Where More Credit Is Due"

Over at The Archer Pelican, blog buddy Phil posted the following thought provoking proposition three days ago under the title, "Where More Credit is Due":

An emerging thought:

In America it seems to me that we often give too little respect to how hard things can be: whether the length of time it takes to mourn a lost relative, or how difficult it is to find the courage to apologize, or how scary it is to leave a job or a relationship.

That said, it also seems that we have to little faith in how strong we can be: whether in the ability to keep functioning while taking the time to cry, or the resolve to push our way through to saying what needs to be said, or the will to walk out a door and to keep walking while everything tries to pull you back.

I could be wrong, but that's the way it seems to me.

To which, a couple days later, I mustered the following response:

Phil, I'm gonna object to just one thing here. Well, not "object" so much as "recast." Among the things you think people don't credit the difficulty of is how scary it is to leave a job or a relationship. You're right, those things are scary, and sometimes one needs to summon the courage to do just that: leave. However . . .

A worse thing, I think (and recent experience of course makes this personal) is the corollary of that failure to respect the difficulty of a thing, i.e., the expectation people have that something should require little effort in the first place. This applies especially to relationships. If I understand you, you are saying that, in this country, we expect everything to come easily. And worse yet, we expect those things to be perfect. A good relationship is almost always the result of hard work, and even the best relationship is never perfect. Some relationships need to end, and the worst ones often take the most courage to leave. But our failure to respect the difficulty and complexity of human relationships sometimes means that people bail without really trying.

And trying to endure is not the same as trying to make a thing better. Better to bail than throw up one's hands and embrace martyrdom. But that false expectation of ease, I think, too often leads people to the martyr label before they have made an effort to make a thing better. Be it job or relationship. Again, some things are unfixable. I know that. But a corollary of your observation is that too many people don't think they should need to try.

I offer both here as an example of the reason I write or read blogs at all. They are, the ones I treasure most, like an ongoing seminar with people who are not only smart, they're my friends. When Susan Jacoby indicts blogs on the whole as anonymous venting by semi-literate, anti-rationalists in her book The Age of American Unreason (which I finished over the holidays and will have more to say about later and elsewhere), I can't help but think she lives in a different blogosphere than I.

The Difference Between Men and Women

Stole this from Buck. Some overlap in our readers, but enough unique to merit reposting here on a slow day. >-)

And if you found that fun and need a year-in-review laugh, check out the other video that Buck included in the same post that day.

Correction: The Beanshooter Man

I titled yesterday's post "The Slingshot Man," and that ain't right, as we say where I'm from. He was, as Barry's cousin Chip Womick points out in a detailed story about him from 2001, the Beanshooter man. There's no predicting what posts will generate the most attention here, but since this one is working on breaking records, here's just the beginning of Chip's article, offered to whet your appetite:

Some area residents and most younger folks do not know the story of how an overall-clad Randolph County farmer named Rufus Hussey introduced Johnny Carson to a bit of downhome wit and wisdom.

Newcomers may have never heard of Hussey.

Some youth may have never heard of Carson.

But the two giants in their respective fields met on Jan. 23, 1986. When the on-the-air encounter was over, Carson smiled, grasped one of Hussey's huge hands in his and said, "You're a remarkable man. Pleasure to have you."

Carson, of course, was the king of late-night TV until his retirement.

And Hussey, well, he was the king of slingshots, though he was known far and wide as, and called himself, The Beanshooter Man.

Hussey died in February 1994 at the age of 74. When he suffered the heart attack that felled him, he was doing what he loved best - sitting at his dining room table, listening to the radio, and carving a slingshot from a piece of oak.

From: "H-e-e-e-e-re's Beanshooter Man," by Chip Womick. Worth the read. The account of Hussey on the Carson show is even more fun than the video of him shootin' June bugs off plant leaves, especially if you ever saw enough Carson to be able to imagine the exchange. Enjoy.

Hat tip: Barry