Category: Decline and fall

Word of the day

Nibiruistic.

Nibiruistic (adjective), used to describe postulations, interpretations and opinions on natural phenomenae coloured by a wish for disasters on a Doomsday scale rather than based on scientific merit. The word is derived from Nibiru, the fictional planet invoked as the root cause for the disaster predicted by the Mayan calendar that would end the world on December 21st, 2012. Since the Mayan calendar was very ambiguous, it could be said to be the archetype for a Nibiruistic interpretation. Nibiruism (noun), a statement based on a wish for a disaster on a Doomsday scale rather than on scientific merit.

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Now that we’ve considered what the fox says, what does the moose say? ((“Hey, Rocky.”))

The furry anthem is not the first crime the Norwegian Flight of the Conchords has commmitted. Here are some earlier outrages (N.B.: rough language and worse):

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I abandoned Stella blah blah blah several episodes ago when it ceased to be fun. Ken the Brickmuppet stuck with it, and he has figured out what it all means:

We at Gainax hate you.
Our childhoods were miserable because we were a bunch of geeky, socially inept otaku who grew to hate our hobby (which we blame for all our lost opportunities). Nothing makes us sicker than seeing those who watch and enjoy anime for they remind us of our selves and our many personal failures. We hereby dedicate our lives to making you hate the medium as much as us, for we are transgressive and enlightened hipsters who understand the nihilistic futility of everything…Well…everything except the cruel pleasure we derive from getting you gullible fools to first enjoy something we create and then watch helplessly and despair as we dismember it without anesthesia before you. That is the greatest joy in all creation.That we are paid to do this is icing on the cake. It’s an ephemeral joy though. Your innocence thus defiled, you can bring us little amusement from this point on, but there are always others that follow the likes of you. Now get thee along, Aokigahara beckons you.

Today’s fun fact

Jefferson famously said, “I cannot live without books,” and he lived accordingly. He collected thousands of books at a time when it was extremely expensive to do so. A new edition of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in 1776 cost about as much as an iPad costs today.

You can buy a new paperback edition of Smith’s book for $7.19.

Update — Today’s fun quote:

The book most fibbed about, says the survey, is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which seems forgivable in these Orwellian times: apart from some character names, reading the news is almost exactly like reading the book.

Miscellaneous links

It’s taken years, but Miku is at last coming to the Mac.

What can you say about nothing? Quite a bit, actually.

Orwell is not the only writer who comes to mind when I read the news these days.

Iwo Jima, one of the less hospitable places on earth, might not be around much longer. Also, Kyushu is an exceptionally violent place, geologically speaking.

Anthony Weiner and his ilk would do well to consider the example of John Profumo.

Today’s quotes

Anthony Sacramone:

I was taken particularly aback by the first five minutes of the film [Pacific Rim]. It shows very neatly and succinctly how we in the First World do have this knack for turning even the worst catastrophes, the most vicious wars, the most horrific losses of life, into forms of entertainment. Call it our penchant for commercializing everything, or a neat psychological trick for distancing ourselves emotionally and psychologically from the evils of this world, we can turn even global genocide into a game show, a video game, or a set of collectibles.

Michael F. Bishop:

Norman is said to have his eyes on the Tory leadership; like Disraeli before him, he climbs the greasy pole with pen in hand. A product of Eton and Oxford, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he combines politics and scholarship in a manner more common in Westminster than Washington. Boris Johnson, mayor of London and a rival in the race for Downing Street, dashes off witty works of popular history with ease; the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has authored polished biographies of Pitt and Wilberforce. There is no equivalent in America; books by politicians here are almost invariably bland, ghostwritten policy tracts or memoirs. This impoverishes our politics—historical ignorance and inarticulacy preclude statesmanship. ((But is there any statemanship in England today?))

Ace:

Al Sharpton will interview Rachel Jeantel tonight.
The closed captioning guy just hanged himself. He left this note: “Avenge me.”

Bonus quote — Avatar:

You guys are thinking too small. For that kind of capital, robot catgirl maids could be a reality!

It’s been a tedious week …

… and I could use a little silliness right now.

Sailor Fluttershy

When I read Dusty Sage’s comments on Equestria Girls, it occurred to me that there might be another bipedal variation on the Pony theme extant. And indeed there is. Is there ever.

Continue reading “It’s been a tedious week …”

Notes, musical and otherwise

There is an anime music tournament in the works, and the organizers seek your nominations. The following are what I came up with during breakfast this morning. There’s a lot of Susumu Hirasawa, Masumi Itou, Yuki Kajiura and Yoko Kanno. It’s not by accident.

Haibane Renmei — “Free Bird”
Paprika — “Mediational Field”
Azumanga Daioh — “Soramimi Cake”
Noir — “Salva Nos”
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica — “Sis Puella Magica”
Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita — “Yume no Naka no Watashi no Yume”
Macross Plus — “Voices”
Paranoia Agent — “Yume no Shima Shinen Kouen”
Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto — “Kouya Ruten”
Ghost in the Shell SAC — “Lithium Flower”
Shin Sekai Yori — “Wareta Ringo”
Ghost in the Shell SAC — “Inner Universe”
Paranoia Agent — “Shiroi Oka – Maromi no Theme”
Pumpkin Scissors — “Mercury Go”
Level E — “Cold Finger Girl”

Inevitably, I forgot a favorite: “Poltergeist,” from Ghost Hound.

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No one ever visits my photo gallery. I decided to open a Flickr account, so even more people can ignore my pictures. It seems I timed it just right — the Flickr page sure looks pretty, but I have to wait for it to load completely twice before I can do anything there. I joined a few Flickr groups and, again, I timed it just right. It seems that Wichita photographers hang out at Facebook nowadays. Although I do have a Facebook account to keep tabs on family and friends, as a policy I post virtually nothing there. That’s not going to change.

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Satsuma-jima

Satsuma-jima, not far from Kyushu, has been a bit feisty lately. I grabbed the picture above from the JMA webcam (third from the bottom of the list) this morning.

Hmmm

Discovered while browsing in Wikipedia:

[Graham] Greene’s film review of Wee Willie Winkie, featuring nine-year-old Shirley Temple, cost the [Night and Day] magazine a lost libel lawsuit. Greene’s review stated that Temple displayed “a dubious coquetry” which appealed to “middle-aged men and clergymen”.[16] It is now considered one of the first criticisms of the sexualisation of children for entertainment.

It may be just as well that he didn’t live to see moe-licious anime.

Hard time

During my youth, I was sent to four grade schools and three high schools, public and parochial, where I spent most of my time feigning attention and wishing I could go off by myself and read and explore all day. I eventually realized that the purpose of these schools had nothing to do with learning. They existed to keep me under close supervision and out of my parents’ hair during the day; any real education that might happen was incidental. The American school systems, public and private, are the greatest achievements in day care in the history of civilization.

I’m not the first person to observe that. In 1972, John Holt wrote that

society demands of schools, among other things, that they be a place where, for many hours of the day, many days of the year, children or young people can be shut up and so got out of everyone else’s way. Mom doesn’t want them hanging around the house, the citizens do not want them out in the streets, and workers do not want them in the labor force. What then do we do with them? How do we get rid of them? We put them in schools. That is an important part of what schools are for. They are a kind of day jail for kids.

(Via Joe Carter.)

Quote of the day

The Sanity Inspector:

In the 30s, serious intellectuals traveled to the Soviet Union to hail it as the future of humanity. In the 60s and 70s, writers, actors & other assorted glitterati went to Cuba to be schmoozed by El Jefe. And now North Korea has hauled in…a retired basketball player with a penchant for shock publicity. The quality of useful idiots is on a definite downward trajectory.

A few notes

A couple of noteworthy post titles:

Proposition: “The collective national IQ peaked in 1967, and has eroded since.”

From the comments:

I read a study years ago claiming that, since the Late Victorian era, the average written sentence loses five words per decade. ((Um, just how long was the average sentence in late Victorian times?)) I cannot claim to know the methodology of the study, but if it’s true, we may all be communicating in grunts, soon. Actually, some of the teens I hear on cell phones seemed to have reached that stage.

Another study I read claimed that, in the late sixties, early 70’s, one needed a vocabulary of about ten thousand words to comprehend a television news show, or to read a newspaper. In the eighties and nineties, it was five thousand.

Ignorance of Botany Is Ignorance of Literature

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Wonderduck is giving Vividred Operation a close look — a very close look, from a variety of viewpoints, from many low camera angles. Better him than me. Can you guess what is a vivid shade of red? Hint: think Strike Witches.

Izu Oshima, by the way, is a real place and a frequently active volcano — sometimes spectacularly so. If Oshima gets feisty during the course of the series, Vividred might be worth watching after all.