Comment of the Day

Going hungry in the USA | MetaFilter

Here’s a funny thing. When I say funny I mean funny in the way that The Joker would say it was funny.

If the U.S. government bought a lottery ticket tomorrow and won, and then Obama said every cent of that money would be used to buy food for poor families, I am absolutely certain that the teabaggers would call him a socialist and denounce the move as “socialized shopping” or some equally asinine phrase. Now here’s the funny part:

We could get…ten, twenty lottery tickets worth of money out of canceling bullshit military research projects *alone*. And the reason we don’t is because everyone in D.C. is afraid of the people who would denounce socialized shopping if they got the chance. Americans live in a country where siphoning money from nonsense research about how to build a gun that best compensates for your tiny penis towards feeding children who don’t get enough to eat is a political liability. I’m laughing and I don’t know why because it’s not funny.

Comment of the Day

12 Dead at Fort Hood | MetaFilter

As we move forward, I hope we’ll all try to keep in mind what our reactions would have been if we’d found out he was a fundamentalist Christian instead of a fundamentalist Moslem. Would we be so eager that the press play the religious angle? Would we be saying, “the fact that he was a fundie had nothing to do with it”? Or would we be more likely to want to put the religious angle in the lede? The fact is, nutty, out-of-control people are attracted to strict side of religions of all kinds because deep inside their secret hearts they know they need restraint.

Critics say stupid things about “Where the Wild Things Are”

Critics keep taking the lazy way out when reviewing “Where the Wild Things Are”, the Spike Jonze movie opening today.  They insist—with an it-goes-without-saying tone—that the book cannot be literally translated into a movie because the text is only ten sentences long.

Did any of these coasters notice that there is more to the book than the text?

It’s loaded with gorgeous illustrations full of action and detail.  The pictures are the attraction of the book.  It isn’t one of the most treasured books of the last 50 years because nine-year-olds think Maurice Sendak has an apt way with words.

Pictures are visual.  Movies are visual.  Any filmmaker ought to be able to get a good five or ten minutes out of any of the pictures in that book.  The text is, maybe not irrelevant, but beside the point.

That might be why film critics are not filmmakers.  A lot of what they say is both irrelevant AND beside the point.

Metafilter comment of the day.

It’s thoughts like these that keep me awake at night:

Scenairo: gun-toting person at Presidental town hall meeting actually draws his weapon for some reason. He is dropped by five sniper bullets coming from five different directions, all fired by secret service members. Other people present in the crowd with guns begin to fire back, not knowing what had just happened for certain.

This is not unforeseeable. The people carrying guns to the rallies are doing so because they want to make a subtle threat toward the politicians that they disagree with.

And yet, people wearing anti-Bush t-shirts in 2004 were ARRESTED for doing so.

Something is really wrong. I fear for our future. I had hoped that the Challenger explosion was going to be my generation’s equivalent of a Kennedy moment, but I no longer am sure that will remain the case.

I was alive but not yet three years old when Kennedy was assassinated.  9/11 was my Kennedy moment.  To this day I wake up and turn on the TV to see if anything else has blown up during the night.  I’m afraid to watch the news and more afraid not to.

It may be true that people have a right to openly carry guns.  I’ll concede that point, but it’s not enough for me.  What you have a right to do should be anybody’s lowest bare minimum standard of behavior.  Because what falls below that standard is what you should never do.

If you do have the right, and your decision making stops there, it means you don’t also care if doing it is kind, or helpful, or responsible, or smart.  And the people who don’t care about that stuff are the ones who scare the hell out of me.

We own the company! Um … hurray?

Charlie Brooker at The Guardian finally settles the disagreement between non-believers and believers:

God/no God? No God. We’re all freelancers. Some of us may choose to sit in imaginary offices from time to time, pretending to receive memos from our made-up boss, or enjoying watercooler conversations about the loving/vengeful/forgiving nature of our fictional chief with our colleagues, but no matter how many hours we clock up, it doesn’t alter the fact that no one’s actually running things on the top floor. This is good news. We own the company!

I don’t mind owning the company, but I don’t want to open myself up to any legal liability. Therefore, I declare the standard LaSosNik disclaimer to be in full effect: I am not responsible for anything, real or imaginary, whether connected to me or not.

There. That ought to do it.

Revenge of the Comment of the Day

A new treatment for cancer? | MetaFilter

You can say what you want about snake oil, but once I rubbed it on my snake it completely stopped the squeaking.

Comment of the Day

knives in bed, rocks in head | MetaFilter

Also, there is a condition whereby some people achieve great success from humble beginnings, believe that they did it totally on their own, and so expect that everyone else can do the same with no assistance needed. There’s a similar thing with addiction — addicts who get themselves clean and find themselves looking down on the “weak” ones who have more trouble.

Quote of the day

Jesus who? | MetaFilter

One wonders why the God in the Bible, who created and controls the entire universe, was so fixated on such a geographically limited area of this planet, and only during a very brief window of time.

People want to live their lives according to what a bunch of crazy, middle-eastern religious zealots said 2000 years ago? I don’t even trust the crazy, middle-eastern religious zealots of today.

Creative Use of Language Dept.

The Kansas City Star reports on local health code violations at area restaurants. The citations by the health department come in a sprightly variety, from

Found a dead roach under a display case.

Or

Raw and cooked meat on the same tray

To

Kitchen manager failed to wash hands after throttling a busboy, then resumed preparing egg salad.

One of those may have been made up by me.

In the interest of fairness, the paper routinely asks a manager or owner for comment, and those comments generally come in two styles — a simple

The owner had no comment.

Or something a little more fancy-footworkish like

We take very seriously the safety and welfare of our customers, and we are confident that all the problems have been addressed, and we look forward to having the health inspector back in the restaurant as soon as she stops shaking.

In one case, the reporter said

A manager discontinued a call asking for comment.

I wasn’t in the room or anything, but I imagine that this was a polite — non-actionable — way of saying “The manager hung up on me.”

In these tense times, I have a feeling that an ever-larger portion of the nervous workforce is adopting a keep-your-head-down-and-cover-your-behind posture. I should point out that, depending on your job description, such a posture may be a violation of the health code. You do what you have to do.

Our friend television

Television is like a good friend who comes into your home and shows you wonderful things, teaches you about nature, shows you magic tricks, tells you captivating stories — and then, when you least expect it, pulls a brochure out of his pocket and tries to sell you pain killers, cheese, razor blades and cars.  And you don’t kick him out because you want to see how the story comes out.