spirot's Comments
Re: Mexican Mormon War: Drug Cartels vs Mormons
Hear Hear!
By: spirot
Re: Vote on Insider Trading Ban Ahead for Senate
Awwww crap. Did anybody see that 60 Minutes thing? They went after Pelosi and Boehner. (60 Minutes is still on the air? Really?) Damnit.
Ok, Brown, the electorate is watching! Quick! Look busy! Legislate something.
Biden, you got something? Anything? Doesn't matter. Anybody? Some piece of whatever that's been dying in committee for six years. STOCK Act? What's that? You know what, don't answer that. Doesn't matter. Everybody get on board.
Here's the play, bet behind the STOCK Act, on two. HUT HUT.
Ok, Brown, the electorate is watching! Quick! Look busy! Legislate something.
Biden, you got something? Anything? Doesn't matter. Anybody? Some piece of whatever that's been dying in committee for six years. STOCK Act? What's that? You know what, don't answer that. Doesn't matter. Everybody get on board.
Here's the play, bet behind the STOCK Act, on two. HUT HUT.
By: spirot
Re: Gene Deitch: The Hobbit in 12 Minutes, Animated
On the one hand: that was awful.
On the other hand: I am pleased that the story of Princess Mika has finally been given its due. My only criticism I have ever had of The Hobbit was that Tolkien neglected the rich narrative vein of the forbidden love between a shire-born hobbit and Mika-of-the-Dale.
On the other hand: I am pleased that the story of Princess Mika has finally been given its due. My only criticism I have ever had of The Hobbit was that Tolkien neglected the rich narrative vein of the forbidden love between a shire-born hobbit and Mika-of-the-Dale.
By: spirot
Re: Neil Degrasse Tyson Debunks 2012
It is moved that Neil Degrasse Tyson is a Bloated Windbag. I second that motion. (And I would like to amend the motion to include Richard Dawkins as well.) The only enjoyment I get from hearing him speak is the satisfaction of imagining a 10 ton ingot landing on his head. It's not what he has to say; it's just the sound of his voice that takes me to that dark place that wishes a Wile E. Coyote ending upon him.
By: spirot
Re: David Letterman: Martin Short's Osama Farewell
Just because it is derivative, doesn't make it parody. If this was truly a parody then his target would have been the Elton John song. Weird Al is a parodist. Martin Short is a glorified karaoke performer. Candle In The Wind is just a recognizable trope that a lazy entertainer is leaning on as a crutch. On SCTV, Martin Short played a character called Cheap Laffs. That pretty much sums him up. Pandering his way through his career, picking easy targets, and desperately begging for laughs as if it was the air he breathes.
By: spirot
Re: Schoolhouse Rock: Preamble
Right On! Indeed.
I'm not even American but my lifelong fascination with the Constitution Of The United States began with this Schoolhouse Rock piece.
See also my interest in interjections (hooray!), my belief that conjunctions function to junction, and my addiction to the tragic unending soap operas that is the process of ratificating bills into law.
I'm not even American but my lifelong fascination with the Constitution Of The United States began with this Schoolhouse Rock piece.
See also my interest in interjections (hooray!), my belief that conjunctions function to junction, and my addiction to the tragic unending soap operas that is the process of ratificating bills into law.
By: spirot
Re: Ted Talks: Sam Richards: A Radical Experiment in Empathy
Radical Experiment in Empathy?
Radical? "Let's pretend we're somebody else" is a proposition invented by children everyday and remembered by actors in theatres around the world.
Experiment. I don't see how it meets any criteria of experiment. The conclusion was pre-determined. Lecture, absolutely. Experiment: Fail.
Empathy. I... guess. Though I was more inclined during this video to try and empathize with one of his students. If this is the condescending tone he assumes for a TED presentation, I wonder what it would be like to be in this guy's class. I wonder... and can you? Can you wonder? Can you imagine? Can you go there? Can you imagine you are a young man or woman sitting in a lecture hall with your cup of Starbucks trying to improve your lives, improve yourself, your family, your country, but mostly you just want to get away from home and family, mostly you want to get drunk, and stoned, and have sex freely without reproach from God and family. And on your first day of some rinky-dink undergrad intro to liberal arts class, which you have to take to graduate some day, this man walks in. He looks like the neighbour back home who used to mow his lawn in cut-off jeans and you're pretty sure he and his wife hosted swinger parties four-times a year... or at least that's what your older brother told you. And this open-shirted, medallion-wearing, tan-panted, tan-skinned white man, shows you the world in a way that you could never have perceived it before... or at least that is what he wants you to believe, expects you to believe. To believe that he, HE, is capable of opening the doorways of your perception. To make you capable. To perceive. To understand. Someone. Else. Because it's true. It's true. Every word he speaks. And can you feel the rage boiling SEETHING in this young man or woman as Prof Tan-pants descends to what he thinks is your level to explain to you the startling truth that... wait... other people have perspectives that are different than your own. How does it make you feel? Does it make you angry. Does it? Can you feel the anger? How does the anger make you feel? Angry? Can you put yourself in those shoes? Can you go there? Can you imagine that?
You see that's empathy.
understanding
Radical? "Let's pretend we're somebody else" is a proposition invented by children everyday and remembered by actors in theatres around the world.
Experiment. I don't see how it meets any criteria of experiment. The conclusion was pre-determined. Lecture, absolutely. Experiment: Fail.
Empathy. I... guess. Though I was more inclined during this video to try and empathize with one of his students. If this is the condescending tone he assumes for a TED presentation, I wonder what it would be like to be in this guy's class. I wonder... and can you? Can you wonder? Can you imagine? Can you go there? Can you imagine you are a young man or woman sitting in a lecture hall with your cup of Starbucks trying to improve your lives, improve yourself, your family, your country, but mostly you just want to get away from home and family, mostly you want to get drunk, and stoned, and have sex freely without reproach from God and family. And on your first day of some rinky-dink undergrad intro to liberal arts class, which you have to take to graduate some day, this man walks in. He looks like the neighbour back home who used to mow his lawn in cut-off jeans and you're pretty sure he and his wife hosted swinger parties four-times a year... or at least that's what your older brother told you. And this open-shirted, medallion-wearing, tan-panted, tan-skinned white man, shows you the world in a way that you could never have perceived it before... or at least that is what he wants you to believe, expects you to believe. To believe that he, HE, is capable of opening the doorways of your perception. To make you capable. To perceive. To understand. Someone. Else. Because it's true. It's true. Every word he speaks. And can you feel the rage boiling SEETHING in this young man or woman as Prof Tan-pants descends to what he thinks is your level to explain to you the startling truth that... wait... other people have perspectives that are different than your own. How does it make you feel? Does it make you angry. Does it? Can you feel the anger? How does the anger make you feel? Angry? Can you put yourself in those shoes? Can you go there? Can you imagine that?
You see that's empathy.
understanding
By: spirot
Re: Dating Video Losers, Blooper
C'mon! Sure it's staged but...
the crescendo to screaming mad:
"I don't deserve to rummage through the dumpster for a playboy" capped with ludicrous pratfall... that's funny. It's textbook funny. It's the science of funny.
I don't deserve to
Rummage through the dumpster
For a Playboy.
It's poetry! I'll be humming it all day long.
the crescendo to screaming mad:
"I don't deserve to rummage through the dumpster for a playboy" capped with ludicrous pratfall... that's funny. It's textbook funny. It's the science of funny.
I don't deserve to
Rummage through the dumpster
For a Playboy.
It's poetry! I'll be humming it all day long.
By: spirot
Re: Track Me If You Can
That's two front page entries that pissed me off today for the same reason. This one and the BBC bit "Do we really need The Moon?" had content that I might have been interested in, but I couldn't continue watching them because of the highly annoying, over-produced video and audio static layered needlessly on top.
"This is high stakes. Listen to the music. It's High Stakes! Cut to something. Cut to other thing! Sting! Fade in ominous. OMINOUS!"
Boring.
"This is high stakes. Listen to the music. It's High Stakes! Cut to something. Cut to other thing! Sting! Fade in ominous. OMINOUS!"
Boring.
By: spirot
Re: Deadly Vipers: Heat Sensing Pit Vipers
You could ask a similar question of human hunting tactics. "You shot the deer/bear/cougar/mammoth/union soldier... why don't you finish it off. Jump on its head. Hurry!"
The smartest thing of course is to kill it immediately with one shot... but if you didn't deal a sure shot, then the smarter thing to do is to be patient and let the pretty little prey just go off on its own, weaken and die, while you calmly track it from a distance.
The smartest thing of course is to kill it immediately with one shot... but if you didn't deal a sure shot, then the smarter thing to do is to be patient and let the pretty little prey just go off on its own, weaken and die, while you calmly track it from a distance.
By: spirot
Re: Why is Glass Transparent?
Yeah, I had to do a little digging to find an explanation of his exmplanation. A more ... ahem... lucid explanation perhaps might have spoke to the relevance of frequency.
It might have been... ahem... clearer if he had 1) identified light as a form of elecro-magnetic radiation, and
2)expressed the quantity of energy in a photon as an expression of EMR frequency.
Perhaps even going so far as to take the bias of human vision out of the picture and demonstrating how the transparency of visible light through glass, microwaves through air, and x-rays through soft tissue are all the same.
It might have been... ahem... clearer if he had 1) identified light as a form of elecro-magnetic radiation, and
2)expressed the quantity of energy in a photon as an expression of EMR frequency.
Perhaps even going so far as to take the bias of human vision out of the picture and demonstrating how the transparency of visible light through glass, microwaves through air, and x-rays through soft tissue are all the same.
By: spirot
Re: Symphony of Science: A Wave of Reason
Nah. This only proves that one can take anything, auto-tune it, put a lush track behind it, and BLAM... something moderately consumable. I loved We Are All Connected, but this one's weak because its source material is BORING.
Too much polemic, not enough poetry.
Too much polemic, not enough poetry.
By: spirot
Re: When Did You Choose to Be Straight?
And also... who cares? And so what? Seriously.
The choice/birth question is a smoke screen that masks our puritanism. Why does it matter if homosexuality is choice/birth. I prefer cookies to cake. Choice or birth: who cares?! Nobody. I prefer same sex to opposite sex: Who cares?! Everybody! WHY? Puritanism.
The problem is not that people believe that "being gay" is a choice; the problem is that the belief is used as an excuse to justify persecution, discrimination, harassment, and the denial of civil liberties and rights. However, "I was born this way" is no shield from the very same bigotry. An anti-semite doesn't care whether a person chooses to be a jew or was born a jew. A homo-phobe doesn't care whether a person chooses to be gay or was born gay. "I was born this way" is no defense in legal courts unless maybe you're pleading insanity... and I don't think queer advocacy want's to go in that direction. Moreover, "I was born this way" is no defense against puritanism.
Neither answer to the born/chose question justifies persecution. Neither answer to the born/chose question guarantees freedom.
The choice/birth question is a smoke screen that masks our puritanism. Why does it matter if homosexuality is choice/birth. I prefer cookies to cake. Choice or birth: who cares?! Nobody. I prefer same sex to opposite sex: Who cares?! Everybody! WHY? Puritanism.
The problem is not that people believe that "being gay" is a choice; the problem is that the belief is used as an excuse to justify persecution, discrimination, harassment, and the denial of civil liberties and rights. However, "I was born this way" is no shield from the very same bigotry. An anti-semite doesn't care whether a person chooses to be a jew or was born a jew. A homo-phobe doesn't care whether a person chooses to be gay or was born gay. "I was born this way" is no defense in legal courts unless maybe you're pleading insanity... and I don't think queer advocacy want's to go in that direction. Moreover, "I was born this way" is no defense against puritanism.
Neither answer to the born/chose question justifies persecution. Neither answer to the born/chose question guarantees freedom.
By: spirot
Re: Openly Gay 14-Year-Old Defends Teacher
I especially appreciate that he did more than just protest a wrong, but that he articulated a course of action to right the wrong.
However... not to take away from the thoughtful, brave, and eloquent speech that this young man made, but when I I tried to find some more information about what actually happened in the classroom, I found a morning tv show interview with the teacher and I was not convinced that the teacher did not deserve the suspension.
It seems that the teacher created an atmosphere in which debate, and therefore dissent, was encouraged, and when the discussion crossed a line that made that teacher uncomfortable, he banished the dissenters from the room. I'm sure the teacher's intentions were good, but maybe he panicked a little. Through certain eyes, the teacher's actions look like a gag order.
However... not to take away from the thoughtful, brave, and eloquent speech that this young man made, but when I I tried to find some more information about what actually happened in the classroom, I found a morning tv show interview with the teacher and I was not convinced that the teacher did not deserve the suspension.
It seems that the teacher created an atmosphere in which debate, and therefore dissent, was encouraged, and when the discussion crossed a line that made that teacher uncomfortable, he banished the dissenters from the room. I'm sure the teacher's intentions were good, but maybe he panicked a little. Through certain eyes, the teacher's actions look like a gag order.
By: spirot
