Whistleblower (will be prosecuted):
Whistleblower (won’t be prosecuted):
Mom, click here for the Internet
The internet at my home sometimes doesn’t work for a few days. Usually, I am happy about that because it leaves me with more time to read books. But last night, I would have needed some internet, so I took my tablet computer for a walk around my neighbourhood in Vilnius, Lithuania, hoping to find an open WiFi connection.
I didn’t find anything useful, but at least I came across this WiFi with a refreshingly different and helpful name: “Mom click here for the internet”.
Another Housing Bubble Burst
News from Oklahoma: another housing bubble burst.
(Hat tip to Titanic for the bad taste in humour.)
Did you notice the Irony? (8) FEMEN vs. Barbie
I didn’t even know that this ugly Barbie doll was still alive, but now she apparently got a big house in Berlin, probably financed by prostitution her sugardaddies. If you need an overdose of bad taste and pink you can visit her for only 49 € for a family ticket. I don’t know why anybody would want to do that, but then people also have been buying these skinny dolls for decades. (My parents never allowed my sister to have a Barbie doll, which tells you what kind of family I grew up in.)
The “Barbie Dreamhouse Experience Berlin” opened today. Guess who showed up for opening day? Exactly: FEMEN, the women who give feminism a good name. They criticised that Mattell, the company behind Barbie, has “turned a piece of plastic into a god for millions of girls from all over the world who now seek only to imitate plastic shapes and stupidity and absurdity of conduct” and protested with a Barbiecue (FEMEN’s pun, not mine).
But, FEMEN, isn’t it ironic to protest against the image that girls have to be thin, pretty and pink by sending a thin, half-naked girl in a short pink skirt? In any case, we like your sense for irony and are looking forward to more of your actions!
(Source: FEMEN)
Child Safety in America
A nice campaign by Moms demand Action for Gun Sense in America:
Having grown up in Germany, I had Little Red Riding Hood (or rather “Rotkäppchen”), dodgeball and of course Kinder surprise eggs in my childhood. I didn’t have any assault rifles, sadly. But maybe that’s why I could walk to school alone, there were no fences or guards around the school, and if I ever came home half a day late, my parents weren’t overly worried. Also, I was never worried about one of my classmates overreacting and blowing me to pieces.
Easily Confused (26) Feminism
Feminism, as seen by women:
Feminism, as seen by academics:
Feminism, as seen by men:
Easily Confused (25) Castro Brothers
Castro brothers (innocent):
Onil and Pedro Castro, brothers of Ariel Castro
Castro brothers (not innocent):
Fidel and Raul Castro, dictators
Did you notice the Irony? (7) Guantanamo
When it comes to the future of the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, I always wonder why those who are against it are running a campaign called “Close Guantanamo”.
I looks to me like Guantanamo is already rather closed with all its fences and cells and guards and barbed wire and lack of access and communication. In fact it is so closed that even those whom the US government deems innocent aren’t released. How much more do people want to close it? And why?
It gets more confusing when those who approve of this eternal detention without due process rally around the cry of “Keep Guantanamo open”.
As I pointed out, Guantanamo is not open. It is the most closed off place in the Western hemisphere. When I read the arguments of the “Keep Guantanamo open” people, it seems that they don’t want to open up Guantanamo in the least bit, they rather want to keep it as closed as it ever has been.
This mix-up of words confuses me terribly in all these debates.
My proposal? “Open Guantanamo” for all prisoners who have not been charged and who won’t be tried in a court. Let them go. If you think that they might be dangerous, put some surveillance on them.
Posted in Human Rights, Language, Law, Military, Terrorism, USA
Tagged Guantanamo, Human Rights, prison, Terrorism
3 Comments
Easily Confused (24) Converters
Useful converter:
Useless converter:
Charles Ramsey is Burma Jones
My most favorite character in literature is Burma Jones. The only black, the only sane, possibly the smartest and yet the funniest person in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, he works for “minimal wage” – not his only mispronunciation – as a janitor in a shady bar to avoid being re-arrested for alleged vagrancy, although his arrest was probably sparked more by racism.
Sadly, I don’t remember much of the dialogue, except for the exclaiming “Whoa!” which accompanied many of Burma Jones’ sentences, his mispronunciations like “po-lice” and “a-ward”, comparing the work at the bar to work “on a plantation” as well as the messed-up grammar and syntax. If you have A Confederacy of Dunces at hand, please add a few of his quotes in the comments below to give other readers an impression of the style. If you haven’t, go and get a copy. You will enjoy it!
Despite its literary success, A Confederacy of Dunces has not yet been turned into a movie. Since this week, I know who could play Burma Jones very well:
(Charles Ramsey, who helped rescue three kidnapped girls in Cleveland, Ohio on 6 May 2013)
That’s exactly how Burma Jones sounds in the novel and how I imagined him!
Posted in Books, Cinema, USA
Tagged Charles Ramsey, Cinema, Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, movies
15 Comments
The Happy Hermit 