3.31.2013

choice architecture

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
How should this commandment be written to become more effective? (It never worked, see Freud)

  • Love thyself and thy neighbor?
  • Love thyself as you love your neighbor?
  • Get yourself a neighbor you can love?
  • Get yourself a place in a good neighborhood?

3.30.2013

Post-modernisM Meeee

Was complaining to a colleague that I don't have a sense of humor.  She said -No you do have a sense of humor.
But I think she confused humor with irony. Irony is the essence of post modernism.

3.29.2013

Meant to make it...(making it?)

This guy made it. Overjoyed. His Dominican family always knew he will make it. in America. And what about me?  I can even speak English. I mean a little english.

3.28.2013

cleanliness and order! Ha! Too high an order!


We soon become aware that the useless thing which we require of civilization is beauty; we expect a cultured people to revere beauty where it is found in nature and to create it in their handiwork so far as they are able. But this is far from exhausting what we require of civilization. Besides, we expect to see the signs of cleanliness and order.
Civilization and Its Discontents -Freud.  Am eternally a discontent! Sigmund.

Thersites - a railer

The rest now took their seats and kept to their own several places, but Thersites still went on wagging his unbridled tongue – a man of many words, and those unseemly; a monger of sedition, a railer against all who were in authority [kosmos], who cared not what he said, 
[215] so that he might set the Achaeans in a laugh. He was the ugliest man of all those that came to Troy – bandy-legged, lame of one foot, with his two shoulders rounded and hunched over his chest. His head ran up to a point, but there was little hair on the top of it. 
[220] He was hateful to Achilles and Odysseus most of all, for it was with them that he used to wrangle the most; now, however, with a shrill squeaky voice he began heaping his abuse on radiant Agamemnon. The Achaeans were angry and disgusted, but nevertheless he kept on brawling and bawling at the son of Atreus. 
[225] "Agamemnon," he cried, "what ails you now, and what more do you want? Your tents are filled with bronze and with fair women, for whenever we take a town we give you the pick of them. Would you have yet more gold, 
[230] which some Trojan is to give you as a ransom for his son, when I or another Achaean has taken him prisoner? or is it some young girl to hide and lie with? It is not well that you, the ruler of the Achaeans, should bring them into such misery. 
[235] Weakling cowards, women rather than men, let us sail home, and leave this man here at Troy to stew in his own prizes of honor, and discover whether or not we were of any service to him. Achilles is a much better man than he is, and see how he has treated him – 
[240] robbing him of his prize and keeping it himself. Achilles takes it meekly and shows no fight; if he did, son of Atreus, you would never again insult him." Thus railed Thersites

3.26.2013

telecommunication versus communion

All this money spent on useless research..Everybody knows that you go to church to pray together with other people and you go to bars to drink in company. Beware of those who drink alone.

3.24.2013

Silk Stockings

Saw yesterday dress performance. As always Cole Porter...
 One of the themes - the heroine, Ninotchka, educated in communist Russia cannot laugh or make a joke. Hmm....does this explain why I am trying so hard to be funny?

college education -missed

I took all kind of kind of Coursera classes. Felt exactly as described in this article - missed the basic classic education.  And then I took their course in modern poetry and discovered close reading of poems and the class discussions. Since then I view each text in a new light.

3.21.2013

belize

The grapefruit tastes spectacular but  this country will not go far. On Sunday,  the street vendors stay home.

3.19.2013

Grand Vision

To see underwater, you need  to spit on your goggles and rub. Starfish and corrals become clear.  What do you need to do to see above water?

3.04.2013

China spying...

Experts! Don't know why the Chinese military is  hacking US government and private companies. Oh, come on! This is a basic communist activity. They hack and spy on their own. Why spare the US?