Wood Duck Drake - All reproduction rights reserved David L’Hoste
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Archive of past issues of <:> i n t e r a l i a <:>:
http://lhostelaw.com/iaa/ia_archive.htm
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1. A Word A Day — sybarite
2. Graphics of the Day — by David J. L’Hoste
3. Quote of the Day — Brent Pallas
4. HotSites - ?
5. Reading List:
A. Death of an Ordinary Housecat
B. In Search of Serendipity
C. Republican Lies About Income Inequality
6. For Art’s Sake - British Rubbish
7. WTF? - Pool water used by Tom Cruise on Ebay
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1. A Word A Day
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sybarite
PRONUNCIATION:
(SIB-uh-ryt)
MEANING:
noun: A person devoted to luxury and pleasure.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Sybaris, an ancient Greek city in southern Italy noted for its wealth, and whose residents were notorious for their love of luxury. Earliest documented use: 1598.
USAGE:
“Tom Naylor sounds like a bit of a sybarite himself, who’d enjoy a good wine, cigar, or work of art.”
Rick Salutin; Mr. 1 Per Cent Meets His Match; The Toronto Star (Canada); Dec 1, 2011.
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From Anu Garg and A Word A Day:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/
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2. Graphics of the Day — by David J. L’Hoste
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THIS ISSUE:
Audubon Park Oaks - five images.
Hyams Fountain, Audubon Park Oaks - two images.
Window Dressing NYC 2011 - Fantastical window dressing on 5th Avenue in NYC (17 images).
Nutcracker 2011 - Seven images from New Orleans Ballet Theatre’s 2011 production of The Nutcraker.
LAST ISSUE:
Recent Portraits - Cathy and Matthew - three images.
Recent Portraits - Carsen and Braniff - four images.
Seen Around New York City - 17 images.
9/11 Memorial - six images.
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GOTD Archives:
http://lhostelaw.com/iaa/ia_graphics.htm
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3. Quote of the Day — Brent Pallas
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The Clown’s Mother
She’s worried. He’s out again
in his big shoes, confident
as a clear blue sky, radiating
bewilderment like the spring sprung.
That little pinch of disregard popping
its red balloon in him. Every habit
of the inappropriate filling his pockets
concealing doves with endless blossoming scarves.
Look at me, he seems to say.
Some inner ball of faith bouncing
at the precipice of every occasion:
birthdays, picnics, elephants lumbering
toward retirement. He always
comes back. She knows this. Safe
as two hands tucked away into pockets.
His big red nose a moon glowing
over the dark and dishes of every moment,
the playlot bullies, the unswept debts,
whatever refuses to budge.
That’s when he walks in without a breath
of doubt, slipping on peels of disbelief,
a king in his element, grasping reason
through an angry crowd, juggling saws
with the wings of whatever he touches,
resplendent as a leaf blown in
from the rain, carelessness
dripping off his big floppy shoes.
While all her earthly burdens: the would haves,
could haves, should haves snap and snag
in the wind like just-washed pajamas.
Copyright © 2006 Brent Pallas
All rights reserved
from the Southern Review
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4. HotSites - ?
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Ball Droppings
Bouncy Balls
zesimon
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5. Reading List
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=A=
Death of an Ordinary Housecat
Posted: 01/23/2012 9:08 pm
by Richard (RJ) Eskow
There’s nothing to see here. Move along. Nothing, that is, but this report of a minor incident in Russellville, Arkansas: “Democratic Congressional candidate Ken Aden’s campaign manager returned home to find his family pet slaughtered, with the word ‘liberal’ painted on the animal’s corpse.”
A statement from the Aden campaign describes the cat as an adult mixed-breed Siamese and included a graphic description of the pet’s injuries.
The statement said that the four children of campaign manager Jacob Burris “discovered the gruesome scene as they exited the family vehicle to enter their home” after “the perpetrators scrawled ‘liberal’ across the cat’s body and left it on the doorstep of Burris’ house.”
“To kill a child’s pet is unconscionable,” the candidate is quoted as saying.
I know, I know. It’s not the most important story in the news this week. In a time of war and financial crisis, there are a lot bigger stories to report than the death of a house cat. It was just an ordinary pet like millions of others, a playmate to some children and a companion to their parents.
Nor is this an electoral scandal. The Aden campaign said they “did not believe the Womack campaign to be responsible,” adding that “before Christmas… a (radio) station owned by Womack’s father, actually promoted a toy drive held by Aden’s campaign for children in the Third District.”
People, especially conservatives, will rush to say it’s an isolated incident of random violence that could’ve happened to anyone. They’ve said that before. Lots of times, in fact.
The shooting of churchgoers at a liberal Unitarian church in Knoxville was an isolated incident.
The shooting of police officers in Pittsburgh was an isolated incident.
The shooting of deputies in Okaloosa, Florida was an isolated incident.
The killing of a Tucson man and the shooting of his wife and daughter (the nine-year-old was shot in the head at point-blank range) was an isolated incident.
The murder of an African-American woman and the raping and wounding of her sister, followed by the killing of a homeless man, was an isolated incident.
The killing of an African-American security guard at the Holocaust Museum was an isolated incident.
Except…
The man who shot those Knoxville Unitarians had these books on his bookshelf Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity, and The O’Reilly Factor, by Bill O’Reilly. Michael Savage said the ACLU “will kill us all,” that “the white male has nothing to lose… you haven’t seen him explode… his ugly side,” and that “the radical left and the radical Muslim are blood brothers.” Hannity has a book called Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism. O’Reilly calls liberals “Nazis” and encouraged al Qaeda to attack liberal San Francisco.
The killer said he shot those people because “liberals” are “destroying America.” Hmm. Wonder where he got that idea? “Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate and House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book.” That would be the book entitled The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. (Hint: None of them are conservatives.)
The man who killed those Pittsburgh police officers was afraid that Obama would take away his guns and deprive him of other rights.
So was the man who killed those deputies in Florida.
The accused killers of that Tucson man — including a woman who was identified by the little girl who was shot in the head — were extreme right-wingers in the anti-immigration movement.
The man who killed that woman, raped and wounded her sister, and then murdered a homeless man was a right-wing white supremacist. He was on his way to a Jewish Community Center when he was arrested.
The man who shot that security guard was a right-wing tax protester.
The people who were killed in these acts of are human beings, not pets. Their absence is still being felt every day — by family and friends, by co-workers, by an entire community. Nobody will mourn a little housecat from Russellville, Arkansas — nobody except four children and their parents.
So why does it matter? The Talmud says that destroying a single soul is like destroying “a universe entire.” Who can doubt the living souls inside the creatures that live among us and share our experiences? Killing a pet is a sick act. The dehumanization of psychopathic human beings often begins in childhood with the torture and killing of animals.
The same gradual dehumanization can take place in a society, too. After Gabrielle Giffords was shot I refused to raise the volume or turn up the heat on our rhetorical divide, and opted for a “moment of silence” instead. But just as there’s a time for silence, there is also a time to speak.
Even if it’s about a cat. If we don’t speak now, when will the dehumanization stop? But if people can’t see the common thread of life that binds human beings together — liberal and conservative, immigrant and native-born, black and white — how can they see the force that binds us to other life?
Of course, the cat’s killers don’t represent an entire movement. But where’s the outrage within the right over the violent and extremist rhetoric? Where was the outrage when people died, over and over?
Here are the kinds of statements that are still tolerated by the conservative movement without censure or criticism:
Ann Coulter said “the only way to talk to a liberal is with a baseball bat,” that “We need to execute people like John Walke… to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too,” and “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.” (That last comment’s a two-fer: She wanted him to kill journalists and that’s her “only regret,” meaning she doesn’t regret the murder of Federal workers, other people visiting the Federal building that day, or the children in the onsite day-care center in that Oklahoma Federal building.)
“Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do,” said Coulter. Sure, she’s getting increasingly strident as her star continues to fade. But she’s got plenty of company.
Leading conservative publication Human Events has a regular “Guns & Patriots” section.
Andrew Breitbart said “We outnumber (liberals) in this country, and we have the guns… I’m not kidding.”
Rush Limbaugh said “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus — living fossils…”
Rep. James Hansen said of President Bill Clinton, “Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him.”
Michele Bachmann said she wanted her supporters “locked and loaded” and “on the front side of the political battle.”
CNN commentator Erick Erickson suggests that “mass bloodshed” might be appropriate if the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion aren’t to his movement’s liking.
Glenn Beck says liberals are “the enemies of God,” coming “for the kill on religion,” and are “enemies of freedom.” He also said he was “thinking about killing Michael Moore… I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it… No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong?”
If liberals are Nazis, fascists, mass murderers, enemies of freedom, if they should be shot, hanged, choked, beaten, killed, then what’s wrong with killing a liberal’s cat?
It’s true that not all the violent rhetoric is on one side, but it’s vastly greater on the right. And the violence has been directed against the left. Coincidence? We report, you decide.
Full disclosure: When I wrote about bank crimes a while back one or two commenters began mentioning violent acts against Wall Street executives. But they’re commenters, not leading voices. And I immediately toned down my rhetoric, which wasn’t violent but was strong.
Here’s what I keep thinking: If someone were ever hurt by anyone who’d read something I’d written I’d be devastated. I’d devote a large part of my life to reflecting on what role I might have played in the violence, and to helping reduce the violence from that moment on. I think bankers should be investigated, and the lawbreakers among them should be prosecuted. But if one were hurt, especially because of anything I’d done — however unintentionally — I’d be heartbroken.
Wouldn’t you?
But there wasn’t a single moment of reflection, much less remorse. Not from Hannity. Not from O’Reilly. Not from Savage or Goldberg. On the contrary, Hannity was outraged when I laid some of the responsibility for the Unitarian killings at his feet. (A true totalitarian to the end, he raged and screamed on the air and said I should be ‘fired’ from the Huffington Post.)
Now a cat is dead. Not a first responder or a churchgoer or a toddler in an Oklahoma day-care center. Just a cat. We don’t know if it was male or female. We don’t even know its name.
If there wasn’t any remorse or reflection after those deaths and injuries in Knoxville, there certainly won’t be any over the death of a tiny creature in a little Southern town. The town was Russellville, Arkansas, in Pope County, population 27,000 or so. Bet you didn’t know it’s the county seat.
They’ll probably arrest some teenagers sooner or later. Just kids. Just kids who learned this behavior somewhere.
And it was ‘just’ a cat. It was just a companion for an Arkansas family and a playmate for its children. The kids will cry but life will go on. The rhetoric won’t change and the incident will be forgotten by tomorrow.
There’s nothing to see here. Move along. It was an isolated incident.
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Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/media-violent-rhetoric_b_1225552.html
From: Huffington Post
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In Search of Serendipity
It means more than a happy coincidence. And it’s under threat from the internet. Ian Leslie explains …
From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, January/February 2012
EXCERPT:
One day in 1945, a man named Percy Spencer was touring one of the laboratories he managed at Raytheon in Waltham, Massachusetts, a supplier of radar technology to the Allied forces. He was standing by a magnetron, a vacuum tube which generates microwaves, to boost the sensitivity of radar, when he felt a strange sensation. Checking his pocket, he found his candy bar had melted. Surprised and intrigued, he sent for a bag of popcorn, and held it up to the magnetron. The popcorn popped. Within a year, Raytheon made a patent application for a microwave oven.
The history of scientific discovery is peppered with breakthroughs that came about by accident. The most momentous was Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928, prompted when he noticed how a mould that floated into his Petri dish killed off the surrounding bacteria. Spencer and Fleming didn’t just get lucky. Spencer had the nous and the knowledge to turn his observation into innovation; only an expert on bacteria would have been ready to see the significance of Fleming’s stray spore. As Louis Pasteur wrote, “In the field of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.”
The word that best describes this subtle blend of chance and agency is “serendipity”.
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Full Article:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/ian-leslie/search-serendipity
From: More Intelligent Life
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5 Republican Lies About Income Inequality
The Republican position on inequality rests on five statements, all false.
By David Morris
January 24, 2012
EXCERPT:
Recent comments by Mitt Romney, the probable Republican nominee for President all but guarantee the inequality issue will remain front and center this election year.
When asked whether people who question the current distribution of wealth and power are motivated by “jealousy or fairness” Romney insisted, “I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare.” And in this election year he advised that if we do discuss inequality we do so “in quiet rooms” not in public debates.
A public debate, of course, is inevitable. And welcome. To help that debate along I’ll address the five major statements that comprise the Republican argument on inequality.
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Full Article:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153874/5_Republican_Lies_About_Income_Inequality/
From: Alternet.org
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6. For Art’s Sake
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Tim Noble & Sue Webster’s British Rubbish
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7. WTF?
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Bid on 4 oz. of water from a pool used by Tom Cruise.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/11/drinking-tom-cruise-ebay-offers-bottles-of-pool-water-used-by-tom-cruise/#more-43816
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