Swedish Toast

I recommend checking out these photos, beautiful stuff

There's an article in the New York Times today about a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, where lawmakers, hip-hop artists and music execs are debating the presence of potentially inflammatory words in hip-hop lyrics.

However you weigh in on the issue, it is interesting to take note of the article's use of single letters to refer to certain words that are central to the debate. The article just writes "B", "H" and "N".

Now jump in the time warp and watch this episode of Crossfire from 1986, in which three fuddy-duddies try to corner Frank Zappa on the issue of censorship.

You have to watch the clip! These guys are maniacs. Frank just coasts over their lunacy (with a few lapses, like when he yells Kiss My Ass).

"How much money do you make peddling this stuff, Mr. Zappa."
"Millions of dollars, Mr. Lofton."

And then Frank says, "Could I make a statement about national defence; the biggest threat to America today is not Communism, it's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe."

How portentous!

Anita O'Day to sing at Columbia University. She just looks evil, maybe we shouldn't let her.

President of Iran goes to Columbia University. He is accused of all sorts of things, many of which may be true. He is publicly called belittling names by the university president, among others. People picket outside with signs that declare they have no interest in hearing him, no interest in seeing him. Some of the signs depict him with red lines across his face.

It is very despicable of people who claim to value free speech, who claim to value freedom, who claim to value loving their neighbours to suspend their beliefs to consciously hurt someone. That's what the students and faculty (in general) did at Columbia University yesterday. If you don't like him, then deal with it. Rally your government, rally your community, whatever. But let the guy talk without insulting him. Otherwise you are simply using the same strategy you claim you are so disgusted that he is using. If he is an idiot, people will figure it out. It is very totalitarian to tell people not to listen to someone because he is wrong. Let the people decide. Maybe that's what you are afraid of, that you won't even know the difference unless someone tells you first.

And of all places to state that we know absolutely what happened in the past and that the documents speak for themselves, a university should know better. I am not saying it is appropriate or even sane to suggest that the Holocaust did not happen, but the first lesson any student of history learns is that events of the past did not occur in one single specific way. By ordering the past into cause and effect, we place dramatic parameters on something that never exhibited those parameters in the first place. The president of Iran asked some interesting questions, "how do we know what we know, what were the conditions that led to it, who was truly responsible," questions that would appear in any history class, whether it deals with the Holocaust or Queen Victoria's wigs. The president of Columbia argued that we know what we know because the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. I would not pass any history class if I argued that point. History is not about relying on documents; it is erroneous to assert that history is knowable, that chapters have been written and are now closed to all interrogation. Keep it alive, engage with it; this is the only way to get close to what happened.

“When you really think about it,” Mr. Bush said, “he’s the head of a state sponsor of terror, he’s — and yet an institution in our country gives him a chance to express his point of view, which really speaks to the freedoms of the country. I’m not sure I’d have offered the same invitation.” Columbia hardly allowed him to express his views without chortling and ridiculing him. And the leader of the US himself stated that he probably would not have extended his country's freedoms to the Iranian leader. I don't even think Bush believes in free speech. Shouldn't the leader of the country represent everything the country believes to be valuable and worth protecting? They certainly expect the Iranian leader to be the representation of everything that Iran is.

Let the guy talk. If you are right in the long run, your compassion and intelligence will shine through.

One of my photos just got chosen for the Schmap online map for Ottawa. It was a photo of two budding flowers in Major's Hill Park. You can see the map's photos breezing by on the left side of this page, and mine's the one by "Fierce Gravy".

I work for the government, the Feds, the ultimate in geekdom. We just got an email announcing an upcoming public service workshop entitled "Depression was not in my career plan". Sure, neither was having arguments in the stairwell with egg-shaped women.

What about a session called "Shitty coffee was not in my career plan", or "I didn't plan on working with any of you bastards". What about me?!!!!

Turns out sending troops home from Iraq was Bush's idea! And he's going to send them home because they've won the war. Wow, he really is too smart. His smartness eclipses most bright objects.

Thank god for air guitar championships!

Weird: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/middleeast/06stalags.html


Canada also had its naxi sex stories, through the Ilsa movies, the She-Wolf of the SS. I always found this genre incredibly repulsing. It was more prolific than it seems it should have been.