…the more radical the bumpersticker

…the bigger the hoopty.

I am not sure if this is a regional phenomenon or if it’s a widespread epidemic.  There seems to be a distinct relationship between bumperstickers and cars.  Primarily the bumperstickers screaming a pro-life agenda or screaming about how science is evil.   On my way to the pharmacy for a refill, I had the esteemed privilege of following a raging pro-lifer who also wants to end fetal testing.  Of course, it was on a piece of shit, Sanford and Son mobile that was held together by duct tape and driven by a knuckle-dragging, frizzy haired inbred with a tremendous underbite.

Yes.  This is exactly the type of person who deserves a say on all things scientific, amirite?

What kind of Good Christian would wish a debilitating disease like Tay-Sachs on anyone (parent or child)?  Are these people so fucking clueless that science is now, officially, the root of all evil and that humans should needlessly suffer because some mystical book says so?

Now, I realize that I’m a Mid-Atlantic, Liberal Elitest who grew up on the periphery of a big, big city among those who can fucking read and marry someone with a different surname, but surely geography isn’t the driving factor in one’s intelligence.  Or is it?

To those who eschew science in the name of the LAWD, here’s a bit of advice:  don’t want the tests?  Don’t have them.  Carry on and pray for our condemned, technology embracing souls.  Don’t foist your bullshit, neaderthalic beliefs on those of us who do.

And…for fuck’s sake…buy a goddamned car that is road worthy.  Not only are your beliefs scary but so is sharing the road with you.

WOTD: Spam

When I was little I sometimes went to stay with my great-grandmother for a day or two. She was in her 80s but she was a lot of fun. Everything in her house was old, but she came from a time when things were built to last. Her refrigerator was an ancient propane gas Servel from the 1950s, which still worked prefectly. She had held on to a lot of stuff from days gone by: boxes full of fascinating old clothing such as arm-length satin gloves, shoe boxes of old photographs, and even a few old magazines full of pictures of women in Christian Dior New Look dresses. Eventually all this ended up being given to my mother. I loved looking through the magazines and at the old pictures, mezmerized by the faces of people who were long dead.

Anyway, one day I was flipping through one of my great-grandmother’s old Harper’s Bazaar magazines from the 50s. In the midst of all the advertisements for cigarettes and liquor was an ad for Spam. I clearly recall what was written on the ad and will probably remember it forever:

Spam: The Ham that Didn’t Pass its Physical.

Isn’t that great?

Back in those days Spam was a canned meat product. Its name is a combination of the words “spiced” and “ham.” To me it’s always been one of those foods that older people eat. In fact, the only occasions on which I ever ate Spam was during those visits to my great-grandmother’s house. She always seemed to have some and she used to make us fried Spam, which was actally pretty good. It didn’t taste anything like ham, though.

Today, lower-case spam is something completely different. Wikipedia defines it as “unsolicited or undesired electronic messages.” These can come in many forms including emails and comments on blogs. We at Random Misanthrope use an application called Akismet which politely and discreetly moves comments which smell like spam to their own special folder. Today I saw that we had six comments sitting in our spam queue, so I thought I’d take a look. This one comment caught my eye because it reads like it was written by a Nigerian prince:

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All this was apparently the introduction to the last word, hydraulic, which was a (now broken) link. As you can see the comment is written in the all-too-familiar awkward style associated with Nigerian spam emails. Most of the language is sort of correct but definitely not standard English, “completely rather interesting”  being a key example. One wonders if this was generated by a spambot programmed to make the comments or emails read like that.

If so, then why?

Oh why?

WOTD: delightful

After yesterday’s WOTD post I couldn’t resist featuring this word. It deserves further discussion.

As I was saying, the word delightful is not normally used to qualify the word “orgasm.” Not that orgasms aren’t delightful…well sort of. The dictionary defines today’s word as: “giving great pleasure or delight;  highly pleasing.”

In the soft-porn romance novels normally offered for sale at supermarket check-out lanes, the orgasms that occur frequently therein are usually described as, “earth-shattering” and other cliched phrases. They’re not even called orgasms. Instead one might see something like “toe-curling climax.”

Something that can be appropriately described as “delightful” is that which one finds mildly but definitely non-orgasmically pleasurable. A colleague sent me a message asking if I’d like to get together for coffee next week and I replied that, “coffee on Tuesday would be delightful.” However, this would be quite different if my colleague and I were conducting an illicit affair and “coffee on Tuesday” was our little code for sex.

But rest assured we are not and “coffee on Tuesday” means nothing beyond just that. It will be a delightful afternoon but not an afternoon delight.

Tired

I am tired and exhausted.  My brain is fried and I am having problems keeping my eyelids open.  I want to sleep but I can’t, another work day has begun.  I have no-one to blame but myself.  I should not have stayed up until 2:30am in the morning.  A reasonable man who has to work the next morning would not have stayed up that late.  A reasonable man would have gone to bed at a sensible hour, like perhaps 9pm.  I wish I was a reasonable man.  Three hours of sleep is definitely not enough.

Still, a lesser man would not have drug himself to work.  A lesser man would have called in sick.  A lesser man would have been reasonable.

MIDSOMMAR

(to the tune of These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things)

Sill and potatis, and strawberries too,
Dance round the pole because they tell you to,
Act out små grådarna in a big ring,
Although you know it’s a quite foolish thing,
More nursery rhymes acted out willy nilly,
But just a few schnapps and you don’t feel so silly,
With all of the food, and the drink thrown your way,
No wonder it feels like the longest day,
Friends and family
Get together,
Full of fun and cheer,
And if you’re not a Swede,
It’s still generally agreed,
It’s the most Swedish you’ll feel,
All year!

Erect the Pole

It may look vaguely Christian.
It may seem quite devout.
But the meaning of the Maypole,
Is not that hard to figure out.

Every year around Midsummer,
We stick it in the ground.
We erect it and insert it,
And then we dance around.

Then we eat and drink too much,
And into the woods we run,
To do our own impression,
Of the Maypole just for fun.

All this Maypole imitation,
Is the reason, no doubts or maybes,
Why every year in Sweden,
There are so many April babies.

A Traditional Swedish Midsommarstång or Maypole

WOTD: intelligence quotient (IQ)

Today’s word is a number. More accurately it’s the score determined by one’s performance on a series of standarized tests designed to assess intelligence. The higher one’s IQ the more intelligent one is considered to be, at least according to the tests. Whether or not the IQ scale is an accurate or useful way of measuring actual intelligence is certainly debatable. There are many factors that make up intelligence and IQ tests assess only some of these.

Interestingly, the words idiot, imbecile, and moron were once associated with the IQ scale and were used by psychologists to describe those whom they considered to be “feeble-minded” or mentally retarded to varying degrees. The word “moron” for example, used to be the clinical term for someone who was “mildly-retarded,” and had an IQ of between 50 and 70.

Furthermore, the word “moron” is also strongly associated with the American Eugenics movement. Eugenics is the belief that certain characteristics can be intensified through “selective breeding.” Hypothetically, if a musically-proficient man and a musically-proficient woman have a child, then this child will be according to eugenics, a musical genius. However, it was also believed that certain negative characteristics could be eliminated using often draconian methods. People determined to be “morons” were discouraged from having children to prevent the creation of further morons. In some extreme cases, these “morons” were forcibly sterilised.

The Eugenics movement is a dark time in our history and the ideas and theories associated with it are now considered to be extraordinarily flawed, not to mention highly immoral. Thus, words like “moron” are no longer used by psychologists to describe people of low intelligence. Instead we use words like “dull.” Although, ironically the word “moron” actually means “dull” in Ancient Greek.

The modern IQ scale looks something like this:

Over 140 – Genius or almost genius
120 – 140 – Very superior intelligence
110 – 119 – Superior intelligence
90 – 109 – Average or normal intelligence
80 – 89 – Dullness
70 – 79 – Borderline deficiency in intelligence
Under 70 – Feeble-mindedness

On a final note, someone who possesses a high IQ and multiple university degrees can still be stupid. The following is an exchange between a doctor testifying as a witness in a court case, and the lawyer questioning him. Keep in mind that in order to become a lawyer one must study for many years, and then one must pass a very difficult exam.

Nevertheless…

  • Lawyer: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
  • Witness: “No.”
  • Lawyer: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
  • Witness: “No.”
  • Lawyer: “Did you check for breathing?”
  • Witness: “No.”
  • Lawyer: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
  • Witness: “No.”
  • Lawyer: “How can you be so sure, Doctor?”
  • Witness: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
  • Lawyer: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
  • Witness: “Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”

Calligraphy Kaleidoscope

Caligraphy kaleidoscope
Searching for a Calliope
Language turning
Constant colours reeling,
Burrowing down deep within
To see what kind of state I’m in
Heart still yearning
Wondering what I’m feeling,
Fly close to my inner flame
Put fingers on what I can’t name
Fires burning
Layers I am peeling,
Try to make some kind of sense
Some logic or some recompense
Always learning
Little truths I’m stealing.