tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-358318452024-03-08T11:28:57.602+09:00Paint Roller BlogSloppin' on that whitewash!Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-35028848836745556332008-08-15T10:27:00.000+09:002007-10-15T10:00:18.191+09:00리빙 인 코리아/Living in Korea안녕하세요. 리빙 인 코리아 MP3 다운 받으세요.<br /><br /><a href="http://joemondello.googlepages.com/HuntsWhales-LivinginKorea.mp3">쩌우 먼델로 - 리빙 인 코리아</a><br /><br />지난 4년반 동안 한국에서 잘살았습니다.<br />내가 한국에서 제일 즐긴것 중에 몇개 뽑아서 이 노래를 만들었습니다.<br /><br />Download 'Living in Korea<br /><br /><a href="http://joemondello.googlepages.com/HuntsWhales-LivinginKorea.mp3">Joe Mondello - Living in Korea</a><br /><br />For the past four and a half years I have lived in Korea. This is a song about some of my favorite Korean things. Enjoy!<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FaIYnJj4jsQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FaIYnJj4jsQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-20694327425911947412007-12-05T23:21:00.000+09:002007-12-06T23:16:07.897+09:00My Paint Roller runneth dryI've decided that it's time to move on to greener pastures. I have exported all my posts to their new home, The Joshing Gnome. I have also decided to abandon Blogger in favor of Wordpress, for many reasons, but one in particular: it is actually easier to export blog posts from Blogger to Wordpress than to a different blog within Blogger. Wordpress allowed me with one click to turn 316 Paint Roller posts into the Joshing Gnome archives.<br /><br />Other reasons for the move include built-in stats and ease of applying tags and creating a header image at Wordpress. As for theme, I've opted for one almost identical to the white-on-black of Paint Roller.<br /><br />And so from now on I will be posting to <a href="http://joshinggnome.wordpress.com/">http://joshinggnome.wordpress.com/</a> Be sure to change your bookmarks and RSS feeds.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-27730772093677001912007-12-05T12:20:00.000+09:002007-12-05T12:38:38.629+09:00To: Metropolitician Re: Yr Proposal . . . I do!!Ah, <a href="http://www.metropolitician.com/">Metropolitician</a>! A passionate man with strong opinions, and I like that. I just read his proposal for a new 'elite visa' for long-time, well-behaved English teachers intended to increase demand for better teachers, improve the treatment of English teachers by school owners, and reward good teachers with more rights in order that they may 'take a bigger part in Korean life'. Since my comment is longer than eighty percent of my blog posts, I figured I'd reprint my comment here, for my own reference and yours.<br /><br />Re: <a href="http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/12/a-realistic-pro.html">A Realistic Proposal</a><br /><br />I find it highly unrealistic that anything will be made of this proposal for several reasons.<br /><ul><li>First of all, all your proposed system does is make life easier for foreign English teachers living long-term in Korea. It fails to address the supposed threats that foreign teachers pose to Korean students and Korean society. What good is making life easier for English teachers who've been in Korea for three or more years without doing anything about shorter-term teachers, transients with no ties to Korea? This is like reacting to a tainted beef scandal by introducing a new super-premium Grade Double-A beef designation. It simply doesn't address the problem at hand.</li><li>Second, the whole proposal's a crazy quilt of unrelated gripes that leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. What Korean would want to read a constellation of complaints about topics as diverse as the Busan amateur theater bust, the guy from the Host getting deported, the way foreigners are treated like 'walking dictionaries', and the illegal black list. Few Koreans would have any idea what half of these incidents were about.</li><li>Third, your focus on yourself and F-4 visa holders in general as a standard of comparison is confusing. First of all, your mother is Korean, which, like it or not, matters in Korea and will continue to do so. It remains to you to explain to Koreans why any foreigners should have the luxury of choosing to quit and work multiple jobs at will, because the benefit to students is not as intuitive as you may think it is.</li><li>Finally, and most important, this proposal fails to make it clear why Koreans should care about the foreign teachers' legal status. From their point of view, English teachers have a pretty good deal. They are in the country to teach English and they are paid handsomely for it. This proposal describes the following benefits for Koreans should they choose to follow it:</li></ul><ol><li>Fewer foreigners will go back to their home countries with hagwon hell stories.</li><li>More poetry, art, and exhibitions in the foreigner community.</li><li>Foreigners taking a bigger part in Korean life.</li></ol>This proposal fails to address:<br /><ol><li>Perceived crime and drug use by foreigners.</li><li>Unqualified teachers. </li></ol><p>I would say that taken together, the strident tone, poorly reasoned premise, and ineffectualness of the proposal itself will probably turn off most of the people who read it.<br />Now if you could come up with a proposal for a visa reform which would provide tangible improvements for Korean English learners and Korean society as a whole while at the same time insuring better conditions for good teachers and weeding out the bad, then I would say you're on the right track. </p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-78768058381772731562007-12-03T11:20:00.000+09:002007-12-03T12:20:37.718+09:00Michael Savage's "The Savage Nation"I just started reading The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on our Borders, Language, and Culture. First of all, let me explain what I already know about Michael Savage. He is an intellectually dishonest <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">flim</span> flam man, a peddler of patent medicines who claims that he's cured cancer with "a special nutrition program" (page 12). He has written about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Children-Naturally-Michael-Weiner/dp/0912845104/ref=pd_bbs_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196648771&sr=8-6">improving children's IQ with food</a> and so-called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Antioxidant-Cookbook-Nutritionists-Secret-Strategy/dp/0912845139/ref=pd_bbs_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196648771&sr=8-10">"holistic health"</a>, whatever that may be, in previous books. I see no difference between his current career as a fiery conservative radio host and his previous one as an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ethnobotanist</span> and seller of potions. The way I see it, he has no respect for his customers in either endeavor, and would just as soon feed his listeners a load of ire-raising rhetoric as he would convince his patients to treat <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">cancer</span> with a nutrition program.<br />Michael Savage's shtick can be summed up as follows: Savage, an New York Jew who lives in San Francisco, presents for his audience a demon-haunted world of anti-family, anti-American <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">boogeymen</span>. His message comes draped in nostalgia for a simpler, manlier time. Being an urban Jew, he allows his sub- and ex-urban Christian audience to focus their hatred more specifically on an urban liberal landscape often populated by Jews and homosexuals. Reading Savage's criticism of "the Dianne <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Feinsteins</span> of the world, the Charlie <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Schumers</span>, the subway senators" allows one to despise liberals without seeming to despise Jews.<br />The straw men that Savage constantly conjures up form the soul of the threat to "our borders, language, and culture". Here's a short list of the ones I could find in a quick perusal of the first chapter of the book:<br /><ul><li>"The liberal fools who can remember every law book they ever read, but they don't know what they're talking about or where they've dragged the nation."</li><li>"The teacher's union [which] has just about eliminated testing."</li><li>The fathers of today, who " if a kid brought home a record from a foreign nation . . . would have to be like Mr. Rogers: "Oh, son, that's just so sensitive of you. How multicultural of you, son." and say "Oh, look at that, dear, he smeared feces on the wall. That's modern art."</li><li>"The bums today whose hands are always out--you know the type. Those card-carrying 'victims' who only know how to suck the nipple of Aunt Sam."</li><li>"The greedy, legal profession, and those with fake handicaps who hide behind a charade to cover their laziness."</li><li>"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Homosexualized</span>, feminized America" where "women are afraid of angry men."</li><li>"Mr. Liberal", who "finds the man who gets furious and really wants to change things" and "tells him he's a psychotic and he needs anger management."</li><li>"Demagogues like Al <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Sharpton</span>, Jesse <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Hijackson</span>, and Tom <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Daschle</span>"</li><li>The "liberal entitlement message being passed down in our society. Just sit on your fat behind, watch TV, swill another drink, and be sure to wait for your welfare check on Friday."</li><li><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Ultraliberalism</span> that is killing San Francisco and filling it with "a human plague". This <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">ultraliberalism</span> begets "Hatred for anything normal . . . law and order . . . decency . . . for mama and apple pie and the roses in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">your</span> hand."</li><li>Democrats, libs, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Commu</span>-Nazis who rule the courts, because of whom "America's meatballs are small, hard, and tasteless.</li></ul>Next time, the nostalgia, or maybe more straw men. Or not. I'm taking a lazy, sloppy Michael Savage approach tonight.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-28527449745404569192007-12-03T09:52:00.000+09:002007-12-03T10:30:06.481+09:00Yakub and other amazing beliefsFrom <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakub">Wikipedia</a>:<br /><blockquote><p align="justify">According to the <a title="Nation of Islam" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam">Nation of Islam</a> (NOI), Yakub (also spelled Yacub or Yakob), was an evil scientist responsible for creating the <a title="Whites" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whites">white race</a> — a race of devils, in their view. . . This was achieved under a despotic regime on the island of <a title="Patmos" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patmos">Patmos</a>. The reasons for Yakub's actions are unclear. According to NOI doctrine, his progeny were destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, a process that began in <a title="1914" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914">1914</a>.</p></blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints#View_of_history_and_eschatology">Also</a>:<br /><blockquote><p align="justify">According to Joseph Smith, what is now <a title="Jackson County, Missouri" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_County%2C_Missouri">Jackson County, Missouri</a> was the location of the <a title="Garden of Eden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Eden">Garden of Eden</a> and will be the location of the future <a title="New Jerusalem" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem">New Jerusalem</a>, and God has led numerous groups to the western hemisphere in search of freedom, including several groups of ancestors to the <a title="Indigenous peoples of the Americas" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas">Native Americans</a> whose stories are told in the Book of Mormon.</p></blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism#General_beliefs_of_UUs">And furthermore</a>:<br /><div align="justify"><blockquote><div align="justify">Concepts about <a title="Deity" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity">deity</a> are diverse among UUs. Some believe that there is no god (<a title="Atheism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism">atheism</a>); others believe in many gods (<a title="Polytheism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism">polytheism</a>). Some believe that <a title="God" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God">God</a> is a metaphor for a transcendent reality. Some believe in a female god (<a title="Goddess" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess">goddess</a>), a passive god (<a title="Deism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism">Deism</a>), a Christian god, or a god manifested in nature or one which is the "<a title="Paul Tillich" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich#Theology">ground of being</a>". Some UUs reject the idea of deities and instead speak of "universal spirit" or "reverence of life". Unitarian Universalists support each person's search for truth and meaning in concepts of deity.</div></blockquote></div><br />Gadzooks!Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-91522794898400171072007-12-03T05:17:00.000+09:002007-12-03T05:20:27.742+09:00Why did I never hear this in Korea?This (courtesy of <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178124/">Slate</a>) is the kind of factoid I came to expect in Korea:<br /><blockquote>[K]ids adopted from Korea outscored the U.S. average by two to 12 points, depending on their degree of malnutrition. In a third study, Korean kids adopted in Belgium outscored the Belgian average by at least 10 points, regardless of their adoptive parents' socioeconomic status.</blockquote><br />Go read the whole unflinching article.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-58719110662989611842007-12-01T13:03:00.000+09:002007-12-01T14:18:34.563+09:00The attack of the 9/11 moviesI saw The Mist tonight. Nobody told me it was all about 9/11. The previews included The Poughkeepsie Tapes (like a serial-killing Blair Witch, with video purported to have been filmed in September of 2001) and Cloverfield (another disaster movie with lots of superrealistic shaky-cam "Oh my God, I've got to capture the carnage of New York being destroyed for posterity"). It just hit me like a tin of bricks how 9/11 and War on Terror-soaked our culture has become.<br />Incidentally, imagine how much easier it would have been to make Starship Troopers and The Siege <em>after</em> 9/11. It would have required half of the imagination at most.<br />Here's a little list of the 9/11 inspired movies I've seen. Incidentally, in making this list I checked out Wikipedia's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_film">2002 through 2007 in film pages</a>, and was tickled to find that some patriotic Korean had gone through them all and put all the big Korean movies on the lists, which are otherwise almost completely filled with American and British movies.<br /><br />2002<br /><ul><li>28 Days Later - Remember the "Have you seen my Timmy?" wall, soon to become the easiest, most emotionally resonant shorthand that lazy writers could use to relevance up their project.</li></ul>2005<br /><ul><li>War of the Worlds - Features New York's destruction, followed by scenes of society breaking down. Relentlessly pessimistic in its view of mankind, the movie is typical of post-9/11 movies in that the characters are completely helpless to stop the events shaping their lives (see also the Final Destination, Hostel, and Saw series).</li></ul>2006<br /><ul><li>Hostel - Helpless Americans killed in an unforgiving, non-understandable foreign world.</li><li>V for Vendetta - Fascism and plenty of it; terrorism grapples with and justified (see also Battlestar Galactica season 3)</li><li>Babel - More Americans misunderstanding foreigners and vice versa.</li><li>Children of Men - Civil liberties crushed, hysteria over foreigners, people everywhere adrift in a world that has spun out of their control, torture by intelligence services, terrorism, etc.</li></ul>2007<br /><ul><li>300 - Didn't see it. I assume it is 9/11 influenced because it has Persians in it.</li><li>28 Weeks Later - Green zones, naughty military men, and more helpless people being terrorized.</li><li>Hostel: Part II - Helplessness!</li><li>The Mist - Disaster followed by helplessness, logical reactions confronted with an emotional/religious mindset, dissention and inability to form consensus on the proper response to the tragedy.</li></ul><p>What does the future hold for us? Judging from the above list, the continued trend in torture-based horror movies, and the trailers for Cloverfield, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and I Am Legend, plenty of desperate helplessness. Get ready to squirm!</p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-34064235612948247882007-11-26T13:10:00.000+09:002007-11-26T13:28:40.047+09:00Those Penny-pinching AdmenI've noticed a new trend in television commercials. Take the Cadillac commercials. Initially they featured Kate Walsh and the awesome guitar part from <a href="http://wc09.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0xfpxqwgldde">Hum</a>'s classic song 'Stars'.<br />Now they feature Lance Reddick from the Wire and that one really awesome episode of the X-Files--and a clip with the same effect, the same atmosphere and general Hummishness, but a sound-alike clip nonetheless, that likely costs Cadillac none of the royalties they had to pay for the HUm clip.<br />Likewise a Walmart commercial features an instrumental from Badly Drawn Boy's great About A Boy soundtrack, and later broadcasts of the commercial run with a sound-alike, with the same twinkling glockenspiel as the original without any of the residuals to Badly Drawn Boy.<br />Way to thrift it up, Madison Avenue!Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-77126245313910954042007-11-26T12:25:00.000+09:002007-11-26T12:31:21.584+09:00Dear Simpsons Writing Staffa). Anagrams are not funny.<br />b). Puns are not funny.<br />c). Cleverness is not, in and of itself, funny.<br />d). Guest stars that play themselves are, generally speaking, not funny.<br />e). Homer singing is not funny.<br />f). Long series of product names altered slightly from their originals (e.g. Sketch-n-Etch, Ravenous Ravenous Rhinos, Herschel's Smootches) are, pursuant to b), not funny.<br />g). Homer suffering brain damage is no longer funny.<br />h). Bart hinting at deep-seated emotional problems underpinning his behavior is still hilarious.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-15570000795716398432007-11-26T04:04:00.001+09:002007-11-26T04:14:46.563+09:00Teacher says every time a bell rings, daddy throws away my futureYou must read <a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/11252007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/jump__george__jump__478233.htm">Kyle Smith's brilliant retelling of It's A Wonderful Life</a> in Today's New York Post. Some highlights:<br /><blockquote>Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey accurately calls Bedford Falls “this crummy little town" and spends the movie trying to get away. He nearly kills himself because even suicide looks pretty good compared to upstate New York.</blockquote><blockquote>In the Pottersville scene, the movie stacks the decks by putting a cemetery in the place of the Bailey Park development. Sorry, George, but without you, people still would have died in Bedford Falls - of boredom.</blockquote><blockquote><p>Mary winds up in a place worse than the cemetery - “she's just about to close up the library!" - where she wears glasses and dresses like Paula Poundstone. It's an insult to working women. </p></blockquote><br />Do yourself a favor and just go read the whole hilarious thing.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-11363782572845057462007-11-25T00:25:00.000+09:002007-11-25T01:04:05.994+09:00Inside vs OutsideHere are two great quotes that go great together. The first is from <a href="http://mckinneyconsulting.com/content/view/66/28/">an essay </a>about Korean culture's propensity do define the world in terms of 'in' (friends and family, allies) versus 'out' (strangers)<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>It turns out that all sorts of things in Korean society are explained by this distinction between "in" and "out." . . . "In and out" explains why Korean students are so clean in their homes and so likely to throw trash in the campus streets - the street is outside their area, the territory of non-persons. The distinction is reinforced by taking off shoes in a house; the house is clean space, while "out" is for shoes, dirty.</blockquote><br />Although the author, Yonsei University professor Horace Underwood, focuses specifically on students, the analysis extends to all aspects of Korean society. At the risk of offending some, I would say it makes Koreans excellent friends, only so-so citizens and, when you're walking down the streets of Korea, particularly aggressive obstacles. To extend Underwood's 'in and out' analysis, one has to go no further than the typical Korean home, the high-rise apartment building, which looks like this on the outside<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjplwCMNYK0xc2r4nwtEYeFjoIxW6qpVwk44cpAztx4Hb2fM1lNwaFOKysT96AQh3eRySco68PiPGAbzqHYIBjGCYZ5-P7aYF1Xv6Te0sRWgNAhlL0FmJ_PZTQ1DPJ5wXF7g57h/s1600-h/apat.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136436837006721858" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjplwCMNYK0xc2r4nwtEYeFjoIxW6qpVwk44cpAztx4Hb2fM1lNwaFOKysT96AQh3eRySco68PiPGAbzqHYIBjGCYZ5-P7aYF1Xv6Te0sRWgNAhlL0FmJ_PZTQ1DPJ5wXF7g57h/s320/apat.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />and this on the inside.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98vdWNcLVbRalVWfD8uFsgkPexOdXmeZNzfT1l_Vr82s1An2uxDCokA6B_3fRWwltjamkyj1SSQr6b3BLFs0ZsD2bqOhjEP0OhiEMbWViYsN_pROB3WWOpGuROkr7LpLzP5Qc/s1600-h/apatkitchen.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136436858481558370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh98vdWNcLVbRalVWfD8uFsgkPexOdXmeZNzfT1l_Vr82s1An2uxDCokA6B_3fRWwltjamkyj1SSQr6b3BLFs0ZsD2bqOhjEP0OhiEMbWViYsN_pROB3WWOpGuROkr7LpLzP5Qc/s320/apatkitchen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Korean homes are typically very clean. The floors clean enough to eat off, unnecessary clutter usually banished to drawers and well-organized shelfs.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEoIaZQ_oYv9lzOCgHulbKLyRgYJD_vdkZQnKRYJwcCpAzl49Gjz67uavHgTlBsAq15karFpyYDAawGPaho_j6XpljzfPhuRdhg8SPpvKwSK2poH0JEDbZ5RBwly5diEDQ24z/s1600-h/bookshelf.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136436854186591058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEoIaZQ_oYv9lzOCgHulbKLyRgYJD_vdkZQnKRYJwcCpAzl49Gjz67uavHgTlBsAq15karFpyYDAawGPaho_j6XpljzfPhuRdhg8SPpvKwSK2poH0JEDbZ5RBwly5diEDQ24z/s320/bookshelf.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The outside of the typical Korean apartment block practically screams to the average American "Yes, we sell crack!", filthy and never ever cleaned, with rust stains streaking the walls and small cracks spackled over in white, emphasizing the building's age, (perhaps to drive down the apartment prices), never letting on the tidy little family lives going on therein.<br /><br />Now here's a quote from a <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2178234/nav/ais/">Slate article </a>about the various re-edits of the Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.<br /><blockquote>We see suburban Muncie as a sprawl of carefully arranged, nearly identical houses stretched out beneath a starry sky. But within those tidy houses, Spielberg finds chaos. Clutter piles on top of clutter in a family room that can barely contain its family. Conversations overlap but fail to drown out the television's blare. And at the center of it all is a man already half-mad from all the commotion, unable to focus on his toy trains and stuck with a family unable to appreciate the whimsy of Pinocchio.</blockquote><p>According to Underwood, Spielberg's protagonists would be living inside out.<br /></p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-83929135557999632482007-11-22T12:53:00.000+09:002007-11-22T13:07:42.705+09:009 out of 10 top pages at Conservapedia homosexuality-relatedChapeau doff to the <a href="http://partypooper.blogs.com/partypooper/2007/11/whats-on-the-mi.html">Party Pooper</a>. Excluding the main page of the conservative alternative to Wikipedia, <a href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics">every single page in the top ten</a> is related to homosexuality. The list:<br /><p><br />1. <a title="Main Page" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page">Main Page</a> [1,916,218]<br />2. <a title="Homosexuality" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality">Homosexuality</a> [1,586,114]<br />3. <a title="Homosexuality and Hepatitis" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_Hepatitis">Homosexuality and Hepatitis</a> [517,543]<br />4. <a title="Homosexuality and Promiscuity" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_Promiscuity">Homosexuality and Promiscuity</a> [421,339]<br />5. <a title="Gay Bowel Syndrome" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Gay_Bowel_Syndrome">Gay Bowel Syndrome</a> [396,018]<br />6. <a title="Homosexuality and Parasites" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_Parasites">Homosexuality and Parasites</a> [388,730]<br />7. <a title="Homosexual Couples and Domestic Violence" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_Couples_and_Domestic_Violence">Homosexual Couples and Domestic Violence</a> [373,363]<br />8. <a title="Homosexuality and Gonorrhea" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_Gonorrhea">Homosexuality and Gonorrhea</a> [331,743]<br />9. <a title="Homosexuality and Mental Health" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_and_Mental_Health">Homosexuality and Mental Health</a> [292,841]<br />10. <a title="Homosexual Agenda" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_Agenda">Homosexual Agenda</a> [271,023]<br /></p><p>Gay Bowel Syndrome? Seriously, I can not imagine what use conservatives could possibly have for detailed information about the mechanics of gay sex. </p><p>Well I've done the legwork and read the page on Gay Bowel Syndrome just to see what these conservatives are so interested in. The first half of the page is a rather dry description of the syndrome (constellation of symptoms). The second half of the page is a description of the history of the term, the perception of the term as one carrying a negative bias by gay activists, and the efforts to have the term removed from med school textbooks. Nothing particularly titillating.</p><p>Still it is wierd that every single page in the top ten except the main page is about homosexuality.</p><p>I wish they included more statistics on their website. I would love to know what page 11-20 are.</p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-82800561373311441192007-11-21T08:11:00.000+09:002007-11-21T08:20:45.364+09:00An unbelievable travestyCourtesy of the most unpleasant <a href="http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html">Michael Savage</a>. The military is asking wounded soldiers unable to serve out their commitment to give back a portion of their signing bonus. According to <a href="http://kdka.com/local/military.signing.bonuses.2.571660.html">the article</a><br /><blockquote>[Jordan] Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his<br />vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.<br />A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited<br />him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.</blockquote>That's $3,000 out of $10,000, by the way. I can only assume that this is some sort of a mix-up, because I would hate to think that this is actual policy.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-29136569303619662402007-11-20T13:36:00.000+09:002007-11-20T14:18:05.595+09:00Wars of Blood and Faith, condensed, part oneI am printing here some of the more provocative and interesting passages from Ralph Peters' 2007 book Wars of Blood and Faith. I am a bit pressed for time, so here's part one.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><u>Clausewitz had it Backwards</u></span><br />p. 39-40 [I]t may be our predilection for prolonging even the most wretched peace that ultimately makes our wars so bloody. After a century of Euro-American conflicts, it requires little effort to make the case that the quickest way to inspire a shooting was may be to cling to the dream of peace in our time. . .Idealistic American communists abetted Stalin's crimes while conservatives insisted that Hitler wasn't our problem. . .The massacres at Srebrenica can't be blamed on Serb militias alone--Europe's pacifists were the enablers. Darfur screams, while we stop up our ears.<br /><br />p. 40 Along with our nibbling at Clausewitz, we also snack on a few crumbs from Sun Tzu, without any real comprehension, that "to win war without fighting is the highest form of victory." Our assumption is that the maxim has a pacific, if not a pacifist, sense: victory without bloodshed! Hurrah, hurrah! Such an interpretation is profoundly wrong. Sun Tzu's primary emphasis in that passage isn't on avoiding battle--that's secondary--but on winning by alternative means. The distinction is critical. Sun Tzu would have found Western peacekeeping operations incomprehensible: avoiding battle and losing.<br /><br />p.41 The conundrum is that our military strength makes our policy-makers lazy. Neglectful of other instruments and means of national power, they inevitably find themselves forced to resort to military solutions.<br />The Chinese understand perfectly that policy is an extension of war beyond the crudities of the battlefield, and they act upon the insight skillfully. The Russians grasps it, too, if less coherently . . . (as with the depth-of-winter gas shut-offs to Ukraine and then Georgia). The French have acted as if engaged in comprehensive warfare with all other parties for four centuries, failing only because their means were never commensurate with their exaggerated ambitions.<br /><br />p.43 Brilliantly, the Chinese have managed to harness the greed of influential elements within our own business community to prevent the implementation of policies by Washington that might reduce China's artificial trade advantages and limit our own self-inflicted vulnerabilities. By allowing a relative handful of American corporations to grow rich, the Chinese have paralyzed our government's ability to defend our workers, our industries, and our economy. We have reached the point where lobbying veers into treason. The Chinese view our relationship as a war conducted through nonmilitary means. Under such advantageous economic conditions, they are perfectly happy to refrain from shooting.<br /><br />p44 Saudi Arabia, for example, has engaged in a merciless religious war against the West for more than three decades, yet it has not only done so while convincing our national leaders, Republican and Democrat, that we're "friends," but has managed to gain the protection of America's military on the cheap, even as it refuses meaningful cooperation with our forces. To preserve the profits of a handful of multinational oil companies, we protect a repellent, throwback regime that willfully created Osama bin Laden and his ilk.<br /><br />p 45 The target of the suicide bomb isn't really flesh and blood--it's the video camera, that powerful, postmodern "other means" of securing a military advantage without possessing a military.<br />By refusing to instill a warlike spirit in other fields of our national policy, we only make "real war" inevitable.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-size:130%;">The Hearts and Minds Myth</span><br /></u>p50 <span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Self-righteous journalists love to claim that the first casualty of war is the truth, but that's a self-serving lie; the first casualty of any form of violence is reason, that weakest and most disappointing of learned human skills.</strong></span><br />We are, indeed, engaged in religious wars--because our enemies have determined that these are religious wars. Our own refusal to understand them as such is just one more debilitating asymmetry.<br /><br />p 51 We must get over out impossible dream of being loved as a nation, of winning hearts and minds in Iraq and elsewhere. If we can make ourselves liked through our successes, that's well and good. But the essential requirement for the security of the U.S. are that our nation is respected and our military feared.<br /><br />p52 We need to be tough on ourselves. Begin by listing the number of religion-fueled uprisings throughout history that were quenched by reason and compromise--call me collect if you find a single one. Then list the ethnic civil wars that were solved by sensible treaties without significant bloodshed. Next, start asking the really ugly questions, such as: Hasn't ethic cleansing led to more durable conditions of peace than any more humane approach to settling power relations between bloodlines? Shouldn't we be glad when fanatics kill fanatics? Is there a historical precedent for coping with violent religious fanatics that does not include bloodshed to the point of extermination?<br /><br /><u><span style="font-size:130%;">The Myth of Immaculate Warfare</span><br /></u>p54 The siren song of techno-wars fought at standoff range makes military solutions more attractive to political leaders than would be the case were they warned about the war's costs at the outset.<br /><br />p56 [T]he impressive -in-theory capabilities of the latest weapons cloud the vision of military planners, leading them to focus on what the systems can do instead of concentrating on what needs to be done. Rather than buying the weapons we really need, we twist the conflicts we face to conform to the weapons we want to buy. The resulsts are flawed war plans based on unrealistic expectations--in short, Iraq<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><u>Politically Correct War</u></span><br />p62 <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">You can trust to kinds of officers: those who read a great deal and those who don't read at all. But beware the officer who reads just a little and falls in love with one book. A little education really is a danegrous thing.</span></strong>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-43692034779738465152007-11-20T13:09:00.000+09:002007-11-20T13:16:17.508+09:00A thought from Ralph Peters<blockquote>We may be impressed that terrorists ad criminals manage to use out technologies against us, but it is a parasitic use, imitative, not creative. A cell phone held to the ear does not mean a modern mind is at work on the other side of the eardrum.</blockquote>from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Peters#Novels">Peters</a>' 2002 book <a href="http://www.ashbrook.org/books/0811700240.html">Beyond Terror</a>, page 13Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-21486097271546572752007-11-20T11:46:00.000+09:002007-11-20T11:49:06.778+09:00A thought from J.R.R. Tolkien<blockquote>A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their bulding material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? He had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.</blockquote>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-63532332919876888082007-11-20T01:21:00.000+09:002007-11-20T01:37:33.003+09:00How to be creative, Gwen Stefani style<p><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-FhiIV6srJ0&rel=" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed><br />According to the above Gwen Stefani ad for HP, these are the steps involved in creativity:<br />1. Like Kingston. Absorb its culture and bastardize it for an American audience, thereby becoming a celebrity.<br />2. Go to a hotel in a foreign country. Japan, let it be noted, is taken, so don't even think about trying to be inspired there. Look out the window at the glittering skyline. The less insight you have into the lives being lived in the city you're in, the more likely you are to be inspired.<br />3. Walk through a middle class neighborhood. Creativity can't be turned on and off like a faucet, despite what some might think, so just be open to everything you see.<br />4. Take what you've seen in the foreign country home. The less your countrymen know about the country you were in, the better.<br />5. Present what you've seen in the foreign country as a product of your own creative mind.<br />6. Sit back and wait for the call about an HP ad deal to come in.<br />7. Repeat</p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-88004318535257287392007-11-18T09:53:00.000+09:002007-11-18T11:11:11.673+09:00John Hodgman and the infinite mediocrityI have been ruminating on the continued existence of John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hodgman</span> and the role he plays in contemporary pop culture. I have been able to sum up my impression of him in the following way.<br />At any point in time, the comfortable middle class with a smattering of liberal arts education look to satisfies their urge to be edified, either for legitimate reasons or as a class reinforcing exercise of their leisure time. They will put up with an amazing amount of boredom in the name of edification. This stems from the belief that unmitigated emotion is crass or base, and that pleasure in particular is a dish best served cold. Thus feelings like anger, embarrassment, and sadness are distrusted and must be intellectualized (see This American Life). While this level of staid introspection suits emotional experiences like anger which are well-served by deep thinking, it is ill-suited to comedy. The result is a dry, almost puritanical version of comedy, usually referred to as 'humor', in which attempts at easy laughs are eschewed as below the 'humorist, and are replaced by more gentle humorous observations or humorous conceits embedded in intellectual subject matter. The humor is received with chuckles and knowing groans. These are responses, rather than reactions, a way to show solidarity with the uniformly middle- and upper middle-class and overwhelmingly white audience or simply a means of giving the needy-seeming humorist what he or she seems to want. The latter is a very typical reason for the laughter, since the audience typically respects the humorist rather than genuinely being entertained by him or her, and wants to win their respect by 'getting it'. Humor as such is essentially a social signalling device, and the sad, hollow laughter of recognition that it evokes are like the nocturnal ululations of bullfrogs: ephemeral, annoying, and ultimately pointless.<br />Notable practitioners of 'humor' are The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Firesign</span> Theater, Lily Tomlin, and especially Garrison Keillor (born, wouldn't you know it, Gary Keillor). In our own time the hottest star on the rise on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Chortlin</span>' Circuit (I coined this term in this here blog post, by the way; feel free to use it but do credit me) is John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Hodgman</span>. Like Dave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Eggers</span> (whom I have never read) and others involved in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">McSweeney's</span> Quarterly Concern (of which I know nearly nothing), John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Hodgman's</span> stock in trade is old-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">timey</span> phraseology. It would appear that we have the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Simpsons</span> to blame for this unbelievably restricted <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">subgenre</span> of humor. His aggressively uncharismatic persona and wry, obscure comedic bailiwick flatters his fans by <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">acknowledging</span> their specialness and broad frame of reference. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Hodgman's</span> book, The Areas of my Expertise, features the following subtitle<br /><blockquote>An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Hodgman</span>, a Professional Writer, in the Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical; Matters Literary; Matters <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Cryptozoological</span>; Hobo Matters; Food, Drink, & Cheese (a Kind of Food); Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels; Haircuts; Utopia; What Will Happen in the Future; and Most Other Subjects; Illustrated with a Reasonable Number of Tables and Figures, and Featuring the Best of "Were You Aware of It?", John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Hodgman's</span> Long-Running Newspaper Novelty Column of Strange Facts and Oddities of the Bizarre</blockquote>Now given what I've said above about humor, it is clear from the book title that, old-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">timeyness</span> aside, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Hodgman's</span> book is relatively wacky and jokey compared to the work of the typical humorist. I submit that this is because, just as the majority of low-brow people gravitate towards the lowest of the low, so does the vast majority of middle-brow people gravitate toward the lowest of the middle. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Hodgman</span> represents the cachet of a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">McSweeney's</span> without any of the challenging fonts, the feeling of superiority over belly-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">laughers</span> that accompanies Garrison Keillor without the droning boredom. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Hodgman's</span> book is essentially the most respectable possible knockoff of <a href="http://www.bathroomreader.com/">Uncle John's Bathroom Reader</a>.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-92082221642223265742007-11-17T12:41:00.000+09:002007-11-17T12:56:26.181+09:00America's Credulity Straining ChallengeI am watching the inexcusable <a href="http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/americas-psychic-challenge">America's Psychic Challenge </a>on Lifetime. It's about exactly what you think it is (to quote that guy from that irritating iPhone commercial), except the 'psychics' ride from psychic challenge to psychic challenge in a Cadillac Escalade. The most amazing thing about the show is the way that the participants couch their guesses and handle their failures. Before every challenge the psychics either offer caveats ("I'm not an empath, so I've never done this kind of challenge before."; "This is the first time I've tried remote viewing.") and afterwards they offer their excuses ("As soon as I started the challenge I got a really strong father figure coming through from the other side and he had a message to deliver, and really that's the most important thing."; "I initially got a message telling me to choose number one, but then I got interference from number five and I went with that one instead, but number one was calling to me the whole time.")<br />I strongly suggest this show to anyone who's interested in scientific skepticism. After all, you've got to know your enemy.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-88525860106593200672007-11-16T22:38:00.000+09:002007-11-16T22:53:07.600+09:00Talking away the pain<div align="justify">Is there any semantic debate more silly and telling than the one that surrounds the question of how to describe the Al Qaeda operatives working in Iraq? Are they Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), or Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia? I hear the argument that the Bush administration unfairly refers to AQI as just Al Qaeda in order to unfairly exaggerate their importance.<br />According to <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/043delki.asp">the Weekly Standard</a><br /></div><blockquote><p align="justify">Al Qaeda In Iraq is part of the global al Qaeda movement. AQI, as the U.S. military calls it, is around 90 percent Iraqi. Foreign fighters, however, predominate in the leadership and among the suicide bombers, of whom they comprise up to 90 percent, U.S. commanders say. The leader of AQI is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian. His predecessor, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was a Jordanian.</p></blockquote><p align="justify">Wikipedia clarifies</p><blockquote><p align="justify">The group is a direct successor of al-Zarqawi's previous organization, <a title="Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Tawhid_wal-Jihad">Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad</a>. Beginning with its official statement declaring <a title="Allegiance" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance">allegiance</a> to the <a title="Osama bin Laden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a>'s <a title="Al-Qaeda" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaeda</a> terrorist network in October 2004, the group identifies itself as Tanzim Qaidat Al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR) ("Organization of <a title="Jihad" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad">Jihad</a>'s Base in the <a title="Mesopotamia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia">Country of the Two Rivers</a>").</p></blockquote><p align="justify">OK. So Al Qaeda in Iraq is a part of Al Qaeda, ideologically and structurally. Whether they have all the resources of the greater Al Qaeda body or not is unclear, but that they will fight for Al Qaeda proper's aims is not. Nobody complains when someone calls prostate cancer 'cancer' because prostate cancer is relatively treatable, as if they were trying to exaggerate the seriousness of the situation.</p>Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-51552256290382864422007-11-14T10:43:00.000+09:002007-11-14T11:07:15.940+09:00Great point well madeFrom <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/25/magazine/25STOCK-TRADER.html?pagewanted=6&ei=5070&en=a6f03d7358bb4fc4&ex=1195102800">an article </a>from the New York Times Magazine by Michael Lewis:<br /><blockquote>It is still O.K. for the analysts to lowball their estimates of corporate earnings and plug the stocks of the companies they take public so that they remain in the good graces of those companies. The S.E.C. would protest that the analysts don't actually own the stocks they plug, but that is a distinction without a difference: they profit mightily and directly from its rise.</blockquote><br />Actually, the whole article is a great read, put it on your to-do list.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-44798888763859613862007-11-13T10:42:00.000+09:002007-11-13T10:49:29.445+09:00Aliens in America is goodIn my humble opinion. The characters are great and the comedic targets are unique. For example, straight-arrow Pakistani exchange student Raja doesn't usually break the rules, but naturally he accepts the necessity of vandalizing a locker in the name of his host-sister's honor. It is also the first prime-time network show that I've ever seen that featured an extended scene of someone getting ragged on in front of the whole school for 'wanting' his sister. Hilarious.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-44669736555810743662007-11-12T12:56:00.001+09:002007-11-12T13:00:05.837+09:00The worst television show in existence . . .. . . hands down, is Brothers and Sisters. Literally makes my skin crawl to watch it. I weep for all the people out there thinking they're watching something 1)relevant, 2)'smart', 3)topical, 4)genuine.<br />It's the smarmiest, most self-satisfied, juvenile and crass thing on television and the people who watch it are either too false or too invested in the show to acknowledge its aggressive idiocy.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-39733831103303945002007-11-12T12:47:00.001+09:002007-11-12T12:53:19.402+09:00Clinton can't winYou've heard it before, a few times I bet. Well let my voice be one more in the choir saying that Hillary Clinton has got no shot at the White House, and that the worst thing that the Democrats could possibly do is put her up against a Republican candidate. Unless a right-leaning third party candidate appears to split up the conservative vote.<br />Hillary Clinton can not possibly win because she is unbelievably reviled. I've heard people, several people, tell me that they will only vote if they can vote <em>against</em> Clinton.<br />You've heard this, you know this. Just helping you let it sink in.Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35831845.post-33033771631564582402007-11-12T11:14:00.001+09:002007-11-12T11:20:03.454+09:00Desperate Housewives death watchFirst Gabrielle can't get rid of her slutty, penniless mother.<br />Then Brie can't get rid of her mother-in-law.<br />Then Gabrielle couldn't get rid of her mother-in-law.<br />Now Lynette can't get rid of her slutty, penniless mother.<br />Seems like there would be more than one possible relationships for these people to have with their parents, but, you know, who am I to say so?Joe Mondellohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10761076947867776348noreply@blogger.com0