Belgians drink horse milk. It's low in fat. The Dutch eat horse meat.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
allegory
CHARLEY
(gently)
How much you weigh, slugger?TERRY
(shrugs)CHARLEY
(nostalgically)
When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, you were beautiful. You could've been another Billy Conn. That skunk we got you for your manager, he brought you along too fast.TERRY
It wasn't him, Charley, it was you!
(years of abuse crying out in him)
Remember that night in the Garden you come in the dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night - we're going for the price on Wilson." You remember that? "This ain't your night." My night? I could have taken Wilson apart! So what happens he gets the title shot outdoors in a ballpark! And what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville.
(more and more aroused as he relives it)
You was my brother, Charley. You should of looked out for me a little bit. You should have taken care of me just a little bit so I didn't have to take them dives for the short-end money.CHARLEY
(defensively)
I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.TERRY
(agonized)
You don't understand! I coulda had class. I could've been a contender. I could've been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
It was you, Charley.1954's On the Waterfront.
man's man
"Probably no other New Zealand politician in the twentieth century has been publicly idolised, then reviled, to the extent that [Gordon] Coates was. Tall and handsome, a war hero with a Military Cross and Bar from the First World War, Coates had a pleasant manner. He was a successful minister in the early 1920s, and seemed full of promise when he became Prime Minister. In 1925 he carried the Reform Party to its greatest victory. He became a national icon, representing emotional force as well as physical energy, and a degree of modesty, all essential ingredients of what at the time was called a 'man's man'. Coates also had great appeal to women. He seemed to personify the young nation's virility and patriotism. Exactly a decade later, however, sections of the population hated him. 'No man had more slanderous stories told about him,' an old friend commented years later. Even Coates's colleagues were content to let him incur the odium for the unpopular measures Government had introduced. 'Before standing for Parliament I thought I was an ordinary decent citizen, but now I find I have committed every crime in the calendar, except murder,' Coates told his electoral committee in the mid-1930s. By 1945 Coates's party sought to put his memory behind them as they exorcised the Depression. He had seldom been mentioned in later years by National or Labour politicians." [p.1]"Coates had many personal strengths, but lacked the ruthless streak without which Prime Ministers seldom succeed. It was many years since Coates had left the Northland bush, but it never entirely left him. He was well brought up and had meticulous dress sense, but lacked what English political biographers call 'gravitas.'At the 1926 Imperial Conference he is said to have breezed into a meeting of Imperial Prime Ministers, all of them rather more polished than he was, and announced to the slightly bemused gathering, 'So the gang's all here.' ... Coates was an intriguing and sometimes disconcerting blend of his conventional parenting and the environment in which he grew up." [p. 4]
Friday, February 6, 2009
liar
In 1906, Winston Churchill coined the phrase "terminological inexactitude" to intimate but not to exactly say that a fellow Member of Parliament was a liar. Some decades later, the description was revived and applied affectionately to the stories President FDR would sometimes share.An earlier reference to Churchill here.
bullies are bad bosses
A conversation with Industrial Psychologist Dr. Bill Baker about his book Leading with Kindness: How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results.
Update: ABC News report on workplace bullying here.
White House Chief of Staff
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
- Rahm Emanuel [born 1959]
ancestry
How people in various countries view the theory of evolutionIT IS 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which suggested that all living things are related and that everything is ultimately descended from a single common ancestor. This has troubled many, including Darwin himself, as it subverted ideas of divine intervention. It is not surprising that the countries least accepting of evolution today tend to be the most devout. In the most recent international survey available, only Turkey is less accepting of the theory than America. Iceland and Denmark are Darwin's most ardent adherents. Indeed America has become only slightly more accepting of Darwin's theory in recent years. In 2008 14% of people polled by Gallup agreed that “man evolved over millions of years”, up from 9% in 1982.
From Economist.com
Cognitive Distortions
1. ALL-OR-NOTHING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colours the entire beaker of water.
4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it therefore it must be true."
8. SHOULD STATEMENT: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attached a negative label to him: "He's a goddam louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly coloured and emotionally loaded.
2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colours the entire beaker of water.
4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way, you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out.
b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is already an established fact.6. MAGNIFICATION [CATASTROPHIZING] OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things [such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement], or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny [your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections]. This is also called the "binocular trick."
7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it therefore it must be true."
8. SHOULD STATEMENT: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements towards others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I'm a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attached a negative label to him: "He's a goddam louse." Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly coloured and emotionally loaded.
10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
1066
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the most important event of the middle-ages, which some argue was determined by stirrups.
Atomic
"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed. A few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says 'now I have become death the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."
- J.R. Oppenheimer [1904-1967] reflecting upon the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Mass Collaboration
"The more you share, the more you win."
- Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy One Worldwide
Stanford's Lawrence Lessig talks about this concept here.
Five Feet Nothin'
FortuneIn this life, you don't have to prove nothin' to nobody except yourseIf. And after what you've gone through, if you haven't done that by now, it ain't gonna never happen.From 1993's Rudy.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
grain alcohol and rainwater
RipperMandrake, in the name of Her Majesty and the Continental Congress come here and feed me this belt, boy!Mandrake
Jack, I'd love to come. But, what's happened, you see, is the string in my leg's gone.Ripper
The what?Mandrake
The string. I never told you, but, you see, I've got a gammy leg. Oh dear. Gone. Shot off.Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove screenplay here.
An earlier reference to Peter Sellers here.
unavoidably connected
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., [1929-1968] in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"
grand old man of Indian painting
M.F. Husain [born 1915]. Image source here.
"He was unable to return to India for many years because he painted a series of Hindu goddesses in the nude, which was considered obscene. I would like to see a picture of Hindu art from any age with a substantial wardrobe. They're always in the nude or very near it. The problem was that he was a Muslim painter painting a Hindu goddess."
- Salman Rushdie [born 1947] making a point on obscenity
ill-trained
DOCTOR
The patient here has been suffering from a trauma, which we think can be successfully treated by electric shock.BILLY PILGRIM
Hello, Billy.
Hello.DOCTOR
We've prescribed a series of twelve and we're up to number seven.
The patient was a prisoner of war in Dresden when it was bombed. He claims that well over 100,000 people were burned to death in the fire. Worse than Hiroshima.
And since Billy was actually there, it's natural enough to assume that this has had a contributing effect on his present condition.
From the 1972 screenplay adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five.
A reference to John Bunyan's 1678 Pilgrim's Progress here.
Monday, February 2, 2009
because he believes it doesn't make it untrue
Michael Clayton
When was the last time you took one of these?Arthur Edens
Na. Na. Na. I'm not losing this. Everything is now finally significant. The world is a beautiful and radiant place. I'm not trading that for this.Michael Clayton
If it's real, the pill won't kill it.Arthur Edens
I have blood on my hands.Michael Clayton
You are the Senior Litigating Partner of one of the largest, most respected law firms in the world. You are a legend.Arthur Edens
I'm an accomplice.Michael Clayton
You're a manic-depressive.Arthur Edens
I am Shiva the God of Death.Michael Clayton
Let's get out of Milwaukee and we'll talk about it.From 2007's Michael Clayton.
Curiosità
Leonardo Da Vinci, Study of Brain Physiology, c. 1508According to this book, here are 7 key areas that shaped Da Vinci’s genius and which anyone can use as a framework for self-improvement:
1. Curiosità:
An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.2. Dimostrazione:
A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.3. Sensazione:
The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.4. Sfumato:
A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.5. Arte/Scienza:
The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination. “Whole-brain” thinking.6. Corporalitá:
The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.7. Connessione:
A recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking.Props: litemind
Sunday, February 1, 2009
mystical dimension of Islam
I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside.
- Sufi poet Rumi [1207-1273]
consensus
Lyndon Johnson meets with Presidential candidate Richard Nixon at the White House, July 26, 1968."Come now, and let us reason together."
- Isaiah 1:18
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