A colleague at work pointed me to this one, which I thought was pretty funny:
School Answering Machine Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school.
In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all options before making a selection:
To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1
To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2
To complain about what we do - Press 3
To cuss out staff members - Press 4
To ask why you didn't get needed information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several bulletins mailed to you - Press 5
If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7
To request another teacher for the third time this year - Press 8
To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
To complain about school lunches - Press 0
If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable/responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework, and that it's NOT the teacher's fault for your child(ren)'s lack of effort - HANG UP and HAVE A NICE DAY!!!
Well.
It does occur to The Anger of Compassion that teachers and other parasites school officials may not be quite so laudably innocent, and that others may, indeed, have some gripes of their own. For your consideration, then, may we present
Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of a homeowner and taxpayer.
In order to assist you in determining just what rung of hell to which you'll be consigned view I hold of the public school nomenklatura establishment, please listen to all options below before making a selection:
If you are calling to explain why principals and directors think they're busier than Bill Clinton in a sorority house fail to return calls--press 1.
If you're calling to explain why you dispense Ritalin like candy medicate as many children as possible for ADHD inside while posting signs outside proclaiming your government indoctrination centers schools to be "Drug Free Zones" -- press 2.
If you are calling to explain why teachers couldn't make the grade at McDonald's fail basic competency exams we expect our eleventh-graders to pass -- press 3.
If you are calling to explain why Mafia-union featherbedding is your organizational model why there are more "administrators" than there are teachers -- press 4.
If you are calling to denounce me as an anti-intellectual, stone-headed troglodyte explain why the NEA's stranglehold over the Democratic Party is good for the country, and anyway there is no such thing -- press 5.
If you are calling to explain why everything has been dumbed down to the conceptual level of paramecia generations ago we taught Greek and Latin in high school and now we have to teach remedial English in our colleges -- press 6.
If you are calling to explain why it is morally acceptable for you to coast enjoy tenure while being paid from money stolen from me to "educate" other people's kids bond issues and property taxes, while I enjoy no such advantages -- press 7.
If you are calling to explain your stark, raving terror opposition to facts of life for everyone else making a living merit pay or competence testing -- press 8.
If you are calling to explain why almost all school textbooks would better serve the community as free, public, toilet paper aren't as interesting as real books, but are used anyway -- press 9.
If you are calling to explain why it's "socialization," and good, if it takes place in a government indoctrination center school, but it's "peer pressure," and bad, if it takes place anywhere else you don't control -- press 0.
If you realize that you benefit as a member of a coercive monopoly cartel, funded by a protection racket, and that it's not MY fault you couldn't get into law school or a good grad school -- HANG UP and HAVE A NICE DAY!
Just returned from the Shakespeare on the Rocks production of The Comedy of Errors and I've got the Beethoven going (late string quartets) with a nice stout in front of me. Naturally, then, now is the time to post some comments on the controversial NBC-TV series The West Wing.
[Note: This entry was completed and posted for the first time days later, on September 24, 2003.]
Well, controversial is as controversial does. If you read conservative political web sites at all frequently, you'll encounter plenty of comments on the show's liberal bias. Now, I find the show to be well-written, well-acted, and technically quite good. But do I agree about the bias presented?
Such conservatives really need to get over it. The show is produced by Hollywood types, who, yes, tend to be liberal, so why wouldn't it be at least somewhat left-oriented? It's reasonable to assume that a conservative or communist or Objectivist would present conservative, communist, or Objectivist values, don't you think? Wouldn't you expect that?
But it's more than that, and this goes to content: since the show depicts a liberal Democratic US president and his staff at work, then please tell me, what views should we expect to hear expressed?
That's what I thought.
I find the show to be excellent in general, and the "Isaac and Ishmael" episode particularly so. I do have some problems, though, even with that one: John Spencer's character, Leo McGarry, would NEVER have been interrogating that terror suspect in the White House. Why not? Because he's the frigging White House chief of staff, that's why not, and the Secret Service would never have let him in the room, even to watch, even for a minute.
Yes, yes, I know: that protective detail is for President Bartlet's safety, not for Leo McGarry's. But I also know that if I were the head of that detail, I would not let that day become "the day the chief of staff was murdered in the White House itself." Maybe on your watch, pal. Maybe. Not on mine.
Are there bits and pieces of PC to be had here? Yup--and there were in the "Isaac and Ishmael" episode, too. Pretty minor: you'll find them if you watch it.
The main esthetic problem I have with The West Wing?. All of the men wear their ties too long. Maybe they should be watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy...
Joshua Zader, of Mudita Journal and Objectivist Blogs fame, has launched another online project: the Atlasphere.
As the site describes itself:
The Atlasphere is a unique community-building web site. It's a forum for networking, both professionally and personally, among admirers of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
It's about shared values. The Atlasphere makes it easier than ever to make new connections — for purposes of business, friendship, or romance — based on a shared appreciation for Ayn Rand's novels.
So there will be a networking feature, regular columns, and (as of October 1) an online dating service. Pretty ambitious, but, looking at the site itself, I think some optimism for Joshua's ambition is appropriate. The site is attractive, loads quickly, and already has four good columns onsite.
One that I liked, by Michelle Fram-Cohen, is Shakespeare: A Poet for this Earth." Shakespeare was not primarily a tragedian, according to Fram-Cohen, and goes on to say that "From a historical perspective, Shakespeare's view of man is a quantum leap from the Middle Ages. Man is no longer a two-dimensional sinner or saint in a morality play like Everyman, or a brainless pleasure-seeker in a satire like Canterburty Tales, but a three-dimensional human being living on earth." I quite agree.
I quite agree, even though I admire Chaucer and love the sound of his poetry. Chaucer is a bit remote from us, because even though he does deal sympathetically rather than moralistically with his characters' flaws, his medieval values and dialect distance him from those of us reading him today. Shakespeare, by contrast, is one of the earliest users of what my own Chaucer professor described as Modern (although not contemporary) English. For that reason alone he is more approachable than Chaucer or the Pearl Poet. But there's more, even, than that:
When Shakespeare's entire oeuvre is examined, what emerges is a linguistic, artistic, and psychological genius. Shakespeare's language is a landmark in the tradition from Middle English to Modern English. His neologisms and epigrams transformed the English language. The enduring popularity of his plays almost 400 years after his death and their successful transfer from the theater to the movies is a good indication of his greatness as a dramatist. The perceptiveness and depth of his portrayal of a vast variety of characters from all walks of life leave no doubt about his psychological insight. His plays express vividly the souls of heroes and villains alike."
Ms Fram-Cohen then goes on to suggest that Much Ado About Nothing is "a good place to start for someone who wants to discover Shakespeare's benevolent side--his merriment, joy, and delight." I'd agree with that, too, although earlier this month, at a performance of The Comedy of Errors, I sat next to a ten year-old boy who laughed throughout and loved it. As for claiming Shakespeare to be "a poet for this earth," I'd also recommend the sonnet "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."
There's also a thoughtful piece by South African entrepreneur Barry Kayton, which I'd commend any parent to read, and an interview with artist Michael Newberry. Interestingly, Barry created the 2003 Michael Newberry calendar, too.
I like the look of the Atlasphere, and I like the name, too (although I also liked "bright," which not everyone did or does). The idea of networking based on shared values is fantastic and I see great potential here.
Go check it out.
Her name could have been Blanca, or Lupe, or Veronica. Yeah, Veronica. Friends and family call her Vero.
I was running near my El Paso home one evening, within sight of Mexico, when a Hispanic woman in blue jeans waved me down.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said haltingly. “Do you speak Spanish?”
I shook my head. “No,” I replied. “No habla Espagnol. Hablo ingles.”
Vero was determined, though, and in short order I discovered why. She pressed on: “Sir, do you know anyone who...who wants their house cleaned?”
Everyone, I thought. Me, I thought. But no way am I going to be another Zoe Baird. Again I shook my head. “No, sorry, I don’t.”
“Okay...thanks.” Vero didn’t look happy. She continued down Balboa Street, the direction she’d been heading before stopping me, toward my house which she wouldn’t be cleaning. I went back to my run, mildly cursing my own thoroughly inadequate Spanish.
And the situation.
Were there losses and benefits from this (unfortunately, entirely verbal and not economic) exchange? Sure:
Benefits: (1) Well, let’s see: I’m not breaking any employment or immigration or tax laws, since I never did hire Vero.
(2) I get to feel good and patriotic, knowing that I’ve done my part to ensure that no wetback is going to “take” a job--cleaning my house--away from a hardworking American. None of whom, by the way, has ever offered to clean my house...
(3) Vero is not cheated out of any Social Security payments decades in the future for work she was unable to secure today.
Oh, and there were losses, too:
(1) My messy house is still messy.
(2) I have to make time to clean my own house, because Vero won’t be doing it, even though my time is more commercially valuable than hers.
(3) Vero doesn’t have the employment, and thus the income, that she sought and needs.
Politicians, including Presidents Clinton and Bush, have extolled the virtues of free trade--whatever that means to them. So did the first President Bush and his predecessor in office, Ronald Reagan. Yet President Reagan, that scourge of Japanese automobile and motorcycle manufacturers and paragon of free trade, was elected in 1980. I remember it well, because I voted for him. Decades later, we have tariffs against Canadian lumber and foreign steel and Vietnamese shellfish. And against Vero.
My home is my castle, or so I’m encouraged to say (if not think). Just so I understand: it’s “my” house and it’s “my,” well, “money,” though it’s not gold...but with all the “free trade” janissaries running around in charge, I can’t do as I’d choose with either “my” house or “my” money. I don’t enjoy the benefits of free trade with Vero in my own home. Which is still messy.
I do wonder how hungry Vero is tonight, as I write this. I wonder how hungry her kids are and whether her husband has a job. I wonder how much more I’d have written today if I hadn’t had to clean the library myself or iron my own clothes. But as Henry Hazlitt and, before him, Frederic Bastiat, pointed out, we’ll never know. We’ll never know because the voluntary exchange didn’t happen, because we--Vero and I--weren’t allowed the freedom to make our own decisions, to so arrange our economic affairs as we each saw fit, to mutual advantage.
I wonder how many bureaucrats and politicians and other professional interventionists of that ilk are happy that I was unable to hire Vero.
But I don’t have time to dwell on such speculation: there’s more work to be done, and I’ve got bookcases to dust.
Sorry, Vero.
Apparently, as far back as the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, there has been an active Atlantic storm on September 10.
Just had to wonder if Alexandra of Out of Lascaux knew this.
You knew it would happen.
Allah has a blog.
Ian Hamet has a short post at his blog, Banana Oil, in which he discusses a Paul Newman film, Absence of Malice. In my opinion, that one is more obscure than it should be. I saw it when it was released, enjoyed it, and have seen it a few times since. Ian discusses the film's strengths and its one weakness (I'm not quite sure I agree with him on that one), and he offers you a nice Wilford Brimley quote, too. Go check it out.
Check out, also, the movie itself. There's a nice organized crime angle, too-- not mentioned in Ian's review.