May
3
2009

URLs du Jour

2009-05-03

  • The lads and lassie at the Right Coast continue to churn out massive amounts of sensibility. Tom Smith garners the coveted Pun Salad Read the Whole Thing award for today, for his political advice to Republicans: "The GOP Should Cowboy Up".

    In many ways, we live in fairly simple times. Obama has clarified things; you have to give him that. He and his supporters in Congress show every sign of seriously pursuing an agenda that stands a good chance of leading to if not economic ruin, at least hard times that go on for a long time. As I have said before, I think it is unfair to Socialism to call the Obama plan socialist. Obamaworld is a lot more like the corporatist capitalism of the 1930's variety, FDR and those Euro- New Dealers who went on to make such a mess of things. Italians. Germans. Japanese. You know whom I mean.

    The GOP has screwed up a lot, but turning themselves into an Obama-Lite party would be even stupider.

    The Transterrestrial Muser has more on the general topic here.

  • The New York Times has an interesting article describing how ecoAmerica, a "nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington" is recommending more effective (by which they mean: obfuscatory) language in environmentalist propaganda. Example:

    Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about "our deteriorating atmosphere." Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up "moving away from the dirty fuels of the past." Don't confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like "cap and cash back" or "pollution reduction refund."

    The article tries hard to imply that both sides engage equally in this sort of bullshit creative wordplay. It doesn't seem that way to me, but make your own call; either way, beware of folks who try to sell you a spade by calling it something other than a spade.

  • Up at Bowdoin College, they're doing them some art in the annual "Naked Art Show."

    "We strip naked to distract ourselves from the fact that sexual attraction, innuendo, and cinematic romance exist at the expense of a broader-encompassing love for that unfathomable notion of humanity," [Bowdoin sophomore Bryant Johnson] said.

    No word on whether parents, especially Bryant's, are demanding a tuition refund. Sophomoric Bryant also opined:

    "These bodies are shocking [...] They are the bodies of college students invested in the future, determined to shatter the social coordinates of the privileged class' modes of distinction in a highly choreographed way."

    If you can make it up to Brunswick ME, it's free and open to the public, and it's probably the only way for you to see naked college students without getting arrested, perv. (Via University Diarist.)

  • Famous Bowdoin alumni include Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Admiral Robert D. Peary, and DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, although I can't find any evidence of their participation in the Naked Art Show.


Last Modified 2012-10-08 5:37 AM EDT