MemeMachineGo!

Zen is boring.

Joshu Sasaki, a Zen teacher from the Rinzai Sect, once said that Buddhist teachers always try to make students long for the Buddha World, but that if the students knew how really dry and tasteless the Buddha World actually was, they’d never want to go. He’s right. Look at Zen teachers. Not a one of them has any sense of fashion. They sit around staring at blank walls. Ask them about levitation, they won’t tell you. Ask them about life after death, they change the subject. Ask them about miracles and they start spouting nonsense about carrying buckets of water and chopping up fire wood. They go to bed early and wake up early. Zen is a philosophy for nerds. […]

People long for big thrills. Peak experiences. Some people come to Zen expecting that Enlightenment will be the Ultimate Peak Experience. The Mother of All Peak Experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. Once I had an amazing vision. I saw myself transported through time and space. Millions, no, billions, trillions, Godzillions of years passed. Not figuratively, but literally. Whizzed by. I found myself at the very rim of time and space, a vast giant being composed of the living minds and bodies of every thing that ever was. It was an incredibly moving experience. Exhilarating. I was high for weeks. Finally I told Nishijima Sensei about it . He said it was nonsense. Just my imagination. I can’t tell you how that made me feel. Imagination? This was as real an experience as any I’ve ever had. I just about cried. Later on that day I was eating a tangerine. I noticed how incredibly lovely a thing it was. So delicate. So amazingly orange. So very tasty. So I told Nishijima about that. That experience, he said, was enlightenment.

Another Berkeley movie theatre has bitten the dust.

A Berkeley cinema staple for 35 years has closed. Act 1&2 Theatre at 2128 Center St., showed final screenings of C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America and Summer Storm to sparse audiences Sunday before closing down for good. […] “In general, one of the problems with theater properties is the retail value of the square footage is higher than the value of the theater. Other retail venues can better afford to pay that.”

The Act I & II had two screens, and specialized in indepedent, foreign and art films. It was part of the Landmark chain, which still has two other theatres in Berkeley. It’s likely that most of the same movies will still play in Berkeley, but with fewer screens to go around, engagements will be shorter.

I regret that it’s gone, but, you know, I wasn’t doing much to support it. I don’t think I’ve been there since Mirrormask opened six months ago. I haven’t seen a movie in a theatre at all since King Kong (and that was the first in a long time.) Most of Pocahontas’ and my money goes straight into our house. Seeing a matinee together costs $15. We can rent 4 movies for that, and not have to deal with screaming children, other people’s cellphones, or 15 minutes of commercials.

Much as I wouldn’t like to see a world without theatres, until such theoretical time as we have a lot more disposable cash, the rentals win.

Robots Dreams has some amazing videos of what robots are up to these days (much of it coverage of the Robo-One 9 Competition.)

Warning: here be multimedia, mostly Flash, not safe for environments in which computer audio will embarrass you, or for dial-up connections.

• Jumping from supine to standing
• Transforming from quadrupedal spider to biped that can swap what’s an arm and what’s a leg. And do splits.
• Jumping rope
• Climbing stairs
• And, best of all — transforming from a car to a robot and back!

Any resemblance between the robots depicted and Japanese TV is purely uncoincidental.

Gary has a hilarious killer article on a New York gubernatorial candidate’s undisguised ethnic pandering. Must be seen to be believed. There should be a campaign publicity staffer out of a job.

Reddit had a BBC story on the rise of the childfree.

One wingnut commented:

The strength of a nation is in it’s families. What happens when the institutions of family & marrige are attacked from all sides? As seems to be happening.

I followed up:

I’m childfree, by choice.

But, goodness, I hadn’t realized I was attacking family and marriage. I’d better go dig a ditch, or make battle plans or something.

Not to mention break the whole attacking marriage thing to my wife.

The wingnut’s cutting riposte:

But hey if you dont want to have kids that fine, but your only following a liberal trend(I assume your liberal). By not having kids your taking part in the liberal baby bust.

Oh noes! I’ve been accused of being trendy! I’d better change my behavior right away to prove I can think for myself!

This woman’s story of cancelling cable is like a real-life Flowers for Trinitron.

Week 1: I lose 3 pounds. This is unexpected, because I am not dieting, and I am not exercising. I compare the ingredients in the shampoo that I always buy with those in the generic brand, and opt to buy the generic brand. Same deal with other toiletries and groceries. (Do I really need green tea extract in my soap? No, I don’t). Strangely enough, I find myself thinking “why am I buying another black dress, I know I have one just like that at home” at the checkout counter of Club Monaco. Also, I am extremely adamant against seeing the latest Matthew Mcconaughey movie. Total savings at the end of the week add up to about 150 dollars.

Week 2: I lose 2 more pounds. My ICC 3-minute blitz rating goes up by almost 200 points. I read “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” by Edward Tufte, and construct a “data rich” statistical graph to analyze my professional/academic/personal accomplishments and goals. Recalling something that my Professor mentioned in class a month ago, I decide that it might be fun to prove the trinomial revision identity geometrically.

Week 3: I stay up later at night, but I am more alert during the day. I become more disgruntled with current events. I get especially upset when people say stupid things. Particularly, if those people happen to be elected political officials. I realize just how powerful television really is at subjugating the masses. I decide that someone should publish a pamphlet. I call my friend at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA students are the go-to people when you decide to change the world), and he suggests that I blog about it, and poll the public for some links (i.e. supporting evidence in the form of valid research).

=v= Breaking news is that Brian Doyle, deputy spokesliar for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was arrested for attempting to arrange to have sex with a 14-year-old on the Internet. (The 14-year-old turned out to be a detective, part of a sting operation.) Now really, how stupid can someone be if they work for Homeland Security and think they can use the Internet to prey on kids?

Already I’m imagining the Rovian spin: “Mr. Doyle thought he was conversing with a 41-year-old. Doesn’t the vast left-wing liberal media conspiracy have better things to do than conduct a witch hunt against someone suffering from dyslexia?”

I realize that Doyle is seriously mentally ill, which trumps stupidity and politics, but I’m still pretty disgusted.

A patent was rejected due to the invention having been described in a Carl Barks comic.

That does not mean that fiction cannot be used as prior art at all. If the fiction describes the invention in sufficient detail, it counts as prior art just like a technical publication would. A famous example is the case of a method to recover sunken ships by filling them with buoyant bodies fed through a tube. This method was used in 1964 to recover the freighter Al-Kuwait from the bottom of the Persian Gulf. The Danish inventor Karl Kroeyer tried to get a patent for this method, but his patent application (amongst others, in the UK GB 1070600 and in the Netherlands NL 6514306) was rejected for lack of novelty. The prior art? In 1949 the Donald Duck story The Sunken Yacht (by Carl Barks) shows Donald and the nephews raising a ship by filling it with ping pong balls shoved through a tube. Since ping pong balls are buoyant bodies, and they were fed to the yacht through a tube, the Donald Duck episode was considered novelty-destroying prior art.

Fish got feet. An important missing link is found just as evolutionary theory is under siege. It’s almost like someone out there is looking out for it, eh?

Apparently the real-life lapine residents of Northumberland have taken some inspiration from the recent Wallace and Gromit film.

Reuters reports:

A “monster” rabbit has apparently been rampaging through vegetable patches in a small village in northern England, ripping up leeks, munching turnips and infuriating local gardeners.

If Anti-Pesto isn’t available, the local farmers could always try using the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

It’s easy to find pages quoting Cicero saying:

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Unfortunately, it seems to be apocryphal.

That’s from the Stumpers-L mailing list, for librarians to ask others reference questions that stumped them. Here’s their FAQ.

1. Is there a novel with no ‘e’ in it?
2. What words in English contain no vowels (including ‘y’)?
3. What three (or more) words in English end in ‘-gry’?
4. Where can I find information on Kombucha/Manchurian Mushroom Tea?
5. There’s a brief inspirational paragraph titled “What is Success?”—Who wrote it? Was it Emerson?
6. What does the Latin phrase “uva uvam vivendo veria fit” in Lonesome Dove mean? Where does it come from?
7. What is the origin of the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child”?
8. What is the word for a product name which is now used for all products of that type (i.e. a name which has lost trademark status)? Is there a word for the process by which a name loses trademark status?
9. I have seen references to The Book of Counted Sorrows. Is this a real book?
10. I have seen the Latin phrase “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” used in various places. What does it mean?
11. What is the full text of the poem which begins “do not stand by my grave and weep”? Who wrote it?
12. There is a quotation about how a society can be judged by its treatment of children/animals/prisoners/the elderly. Who said it, and what, exactly, did they say?
13. Where does the term “blue plate special” come from?
14. If the average human body were broken down into its constituent chemicals, how much would they be worth?
15. There is a saying that there are only a few plots in all of literature. Who said that, and how many are there supposed to be?
    

I recently read Eric Frank Russell’s Three to Conquer, a science fiction novel from 1955, of the then-popular alien-invaders-walk-among-us genre.

Omitting the first paragraph, it begins :

It was April 1, 1980. All Fools’ Day, he thought wryly. They had two or three moving roadways in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Also six airtight stations up there on the Moon. But except for rear engines and doped-alcohol fuel, motor-cars were little different from those of thirty years ago. Helicopters remained beyond reach of the average pocket. Taxpayers still skinned themselves month after month—and brooded over it every All Fools’ Day.

For the past ten years three had been talk of mass produced helicopters at two thousand dollars apiece. Nothing had ever come of it. Maybe it was just as well considering the likely death-roll when drunks, half-wits and hot-rod enthusiasts took to the skies.

For the same ten years the scientific write-up boys had been forecasting a landing upon Mars within the next five. Nothing had ever come of that either. Sometimes he doubted whether anything ever would come of it. A minimum of sixty million miles is a terrible distance for a gadget that squirts itself along.

It reminded me of this satire.

At the airport Roger presented their identification cards to a representative of the airline company, who used her own computer system to check his identity and retrieve his itinerary. She entered a confirmation number, and gave him two passes which gave them access to the boarding area. They now underwent a security inspection, which was required for all airline flights. They handed their luggage to another representative; it would be transported in a separate, unpressurized chamber on the aircraft.

“Do you think we’ll be flying on a propeller plane? Or one of the newer jets?” asked Ann.

“I’m sure it will be a jet,’ said Roger. ‘Propeller planes are almost entirely out of date, after all. On the other hand, rocket engines are still experimental. It’s said that when they’re in general use, trips like this will take an hour at most. This one will take up to four hours.”

Until 1955, the U.S. Tax Day was March 15. I suppose there was already talk of postponing it by the time Russell was writing this.

He’s got Vince Coletta’s stand-out guise
He’s got Jack Kirby eyes

(Or, instead of Vince Coletta, maybe Mike Royer, or one of several other inkers.)

I’ve finally gotten around to reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, a fascinating read as both biography and history. Adams hadn’t been much more than a name in the history books to me before this, and probably a lot of people would say the same. Ask people to name some great leaders of the American Revolution, and most will probably come up with Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and even Samuel Adams (his reincarnation as a beer doesn’t hurt), but not John. This book shows why he’s worthy to stand in their company.

One of my favorite things about this biography is the little anecdotes (collected from the voluminous letters and diaries of Adams himself) that humanize the legendary figures. For example, one night in 1776 when Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge were traveling from Philadelphia to Staten Island to meet with Lord Howe and discuss a possible negotiated end to the rebellion.

When they reached New Brunswick, New Jersey, the only available inn was so crowded that Adams and Franklin had to share a bed in a single small room. The going had been hard and slow, since the main highway was crowded with soldiers marching towards New York, not to mention gawkers eager to catch a glimpse of the famous members of Congress. One can imagine that the travelers would be eager to just get some sleep, but this couldn’t be accomplished without a debate between Adams and Franklin over whether the window should be left open or closed.

Franklin, the scientist and natural philosopher, firmly believed in the health benefits of fresh air at night. Adams, although younger and not scientifically inclined, was still far from uneducated and had famously strong opinions when he believed himself to be right. Possibly drawing on the experience of his New England upbringing, he held that the chill of the night air was more unhealthy than the stale air of a closed room.

Franklin was not to be dissuaded, though, and asked Adams if he was familiar with Franklin’s theories on germs and colds. Adams replied that he had indeed read the scientist’s papers, and although he disagreed with the theory, he was willing to listen to it again. So as the two men lay down, Franklin waxed didactic about fresh air and health, with which, Adams wrote, “I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep.”

[The above is paraphrasing McCullough, who was mainly paraphrasing Adams.]

Burial customs:

More people than ever are asking to be buried or cremated with their mobile phones when they die, say researchers. […] “People wanted to be buried with the totems that they felt represented their lifestyle. […] We came across one guy who asked to be buried with his mobile phone and his Blackberry, and also with his laptop.”

=v= This wacky universe of ours has horked up a sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug. But wait, it gets worse better:

... The dedication includes materials provided by Manhattan Right To Life Committee.

"Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston," believed Pro-Life's first monument to the 'act of giving birth,' is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears' pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval [sic], compliment [sic] a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean's head.

The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva's pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back arched, pelvis thrust upward ....

This is currently being exhibited in a gallery in Brooklyn, and the creator is looking for an appropriate location to install it outdoors. Because, you know, if there's one thing Brooklyn needs it's a tribute to a white, goyish, aggressively mediocre singer for not having an abortion.

(Not via Hip Mama, though I couldn't resist ganking their title.)

The South Indian film actor Raj Kumar had a long and respectable career and quite a devoted following. Although most Americans may not have heard the name or seen any of his films, his death affected many technology firms who outsource their IT operations to Bangalore. Riots in that city, attributed to “distressed fans”, forced most businesses to close early and send their workers home for the day.

This raises a couple of interesting thoughts. First, on the unintended consequences of globalization. The death of someone who is famous in one region but virtually unknown in another can now affect the business of people who have never heard of him.

But more provocatively: what’s the problem in Bangalore? News reports tell of a “wave of violence across the city, as mobs torched and stoned vehicles and businesses, including a Microsoft research institute.” Raj Kumar portrayed heroic, respectable characters, and was revered as an “elder brother”. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would have been happy with this violence. How does this translate into burning cars and an attack on Microsoft?

Even some of the people in Bangalore are at a loss to understand this, as quoted in the Reuters report: ” ‘It is a natural death. Why are the fans getting violent? It is out of fear people are closing shops,’ said a street vendor near one of the city’s main bus terminals.”

Mobs provide a convenient excuse for angry people to get violent. But there has to be some underlying cause for their anger. I suspect that the mobs in Bangalore were really protesting something other than Raj Kumar’s death. There’s a deeper story here for someone to explore.

Steve Barnes has a good point.

We have a situation right now where an increasing number of Conservative Republicans are questioning their support of the Bush White House. At this point, beyond almost any doubt, I think Bush is the worst, most dishonest and incompetent president of my lifetime… but, of course, I could be wrong. If I’m right, though, dear God are we in trouble.

As more Republicans begin to admit their dismay, it is VERY important that they be allowed to expose weakness without being laughed at, attacked or “I told you so’d.” One day the shoe will be on the other foot, I promise you. As citizens of this country, we have to be able to admit to weakness and mistakes without being savaged. I can’t do anything about the hyena laughter on Air America as new information strongly suggesting Bush lied to our faces, or at the very least, stretched truth to the breaking point. I don’t approve of the mockery… but then again I didn’t approve of Rush Limbaugh or Micheal Savage either. Their job is to stir the masses, not encourage reasoned discourse.

If things fall apart as badly as they seem to be, remember that we’re all in this together. Welcome them with open arms, and realize we’ve all made mistakes. Let’s do what we need to do to heal the country…

But it can be so hard not to say “I toooooold you soooo!”

Bruce Bartlett, the author of “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is “unconscionable,” “irresponsible,” “vindictive” and “inept.”

It’s no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that “if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears.”

Oh, wait. That’s not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It’s what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he’s saying now.

Man sentenced to 20 years for receiving anime child porn.

He’s the first person convicted under a 2003 federal law that criminalizes the production or distribution of drawings or cartoons showing the sexual abuse of children.

Actual convicted child molester gets 60 days.

The principle of proportionality, an long-precedented interpretation of the 8th Amendment:

Justice Field in O’Neil v. Vermont 148 argued in dissent that in addition to prohibiting punishments deemed barbarous and inhumane the Eighth Amendment also condemned ”all punishments which by their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportionate to the offenses charged.” In Weems v. United States, this view was adopted by the Court in striking down a sentence in the Philippine Islands of 15 years incarceration at hard labor with chains on the ankles, loss of all civil rights, and perpetual surveillance, for the offense of falsifying public documents. The Court compared the sentence with those meted out for other offenses and concluded: ”This contrast shows more than different exercises of legislative judgment. It is greater than that. It condemns the sentence in this case as cruel and unusual. It exhibits a difference between unrestrained power and that which is exercised under the spirit of constitutional limitations formed to establish justice.” Punishments as well as fines, therefore, can be condemned as excessive.

Everyone else has linked to it, so why not me? These short Rube Goldberg machines from a Japanese TV show are like baby versions of the Honda Cog Commercial.

I learned from A Word a Day that a Brit might say Heath Robinson where Americans would say “Rube Goldberg.” According to an A Word a Day letter writer, in Denmark, it’s a “Storm P,” and according to the Wikipedia, in Japan, it’s a Pythagorean machine.

The whole blogosphere linked to this story about an Indian man in London missing his flight, because he was detained by police after the cabbie reported him for singing along to “London Calling.”

The Bay Area had our own incident recently, which was just as stupid, and affected a lot more people. (BART is Bay Area Rapid Transit, the Bay Area’s lightrail system.)

Wednesday BART services were disrupted for the second time around in two weeks when a bomb threat on a San Francisco-bound train at the 12th Street Oakland station resulted in services to all East Bay stations being cancelled for over an hour. According to Lt. William Schultz, in charge of the Patrol Bureau for Zones 1 and 3, which includes all the Berkeley BART stations, one of the BART patrons overheard two men on a San Francisco-bound train talking about a bomb on the train at the 12th Street station in Oakland around 8 a.m.

The first suspect was later identified as a 35-year-old Hispanic male weighing 155 pounds with slicked back hair, wearing a navy blue parka and carrying a backpack, while the second suspect was identified as a 35-year-old black male, weighing 160 pounds with short black hair and wearing a putty green parka.The patron was said to have followed the two suspects up to the street level after which he reported the incident to the BART agent at the station booth. Although people were taken into custody after the report was filed, the patron was unable to identify anyone at a suspect line-up.

I can only speculate beyond what I’ve read in the papers. But my speculation is:

1. They were talking about a bomb while discussing some action movie.
2. This would have been a non-incident had they been white.

BART Police assured us how prudent their response was:

Lt. Schultz also commented that the incident was different from other threats, which usually involved suspicious packages or phone calls. “It is important to realize the seriousness of this particular incident. It’s not a bunch of intoxicated college kids joking about a bomb on the train; it’s two normal people who are completely in their senses. Situations like this need to be controlled immediately,” he said.

BART has been cultivating this Don’t Suspect a Friend — Report Him! attitude with their anti-terrorism campaign.

Bruce Schneier says:

The problem with a nation of amateur spies is that it results in these sorts of results. “I know he’s a terrorist because he’s dressing funny and he always has white wires hanging out of his pocket.” “They all talk in a funny language, and their cooking smells bad.”

Amateur spies perform amateur spying. If everybody does it, the false alarms will overwhelm the police.

Golden bamboo lemurs are so tough, that they eat cyanide for breakfast.

An herbivore, H. aureus feeds almost exclusively on plants from the family Gramineae, primarily on endemic giant bamboo, Cephalostachium viguieri, but also on bamboo creeper and bamboo grass. These lemurs eat the shoots, leaf bases, pith and viny parts of these bamboos.

Chemical analysis has shown that the soft stalks and growing tips that Hapalemur prefers, which are ignored by the other lemurs, are very high in protein as well as cyanide. Golden bamboo lemurs eat about 500 g of bamboo each day, which contains 12 times the amount of cyanide lethal to most animals.

All this and thumbs, too.

Al Franken’s opening remarks in a debate with Ann Coulter (and more on the debate.)

A few months after my last debate with Ann, the following appeared in a New York Observer story about Ann. From the September 13, 2004 issue..

The writer asks Ann in the article:

“She debated Al Franken recently?

“‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s not an interesting debate, because liberals can’t argue. So it’s never like point-counterpoint; all we do is hear about his fucking U.S.O. tours for three hours. Excuse my French.’”

Ann, let’s see if we can have a point-counterpoint, and an interesting debate. And by the way, Ann, I have here a DVD of that entire three hour debate — And I’ll bet you my speaking fee tonight that I spoke about my USO tours for less than a grand total of three minutes. How about it Ann? My speaking fee against your speaking fee?

I mean we care about the truth, don’t we?

Congrats to Leonard and Sumana!

Dream House by Maurits, an entry in Worth1000’s Childhood Renaissance 3 contest reminds me of Harry Chapin’s Flowers Are Red.

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man
I’m paintin’ flowers he said
She said… It’s not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There’s a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one

And she said…
Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said…
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy
There’s ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me…..

The street finds its own uses.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has one word to offer on the subject of its musical oil barrels.

“What?” says Shell spokeswoman Alexandra Wright in London.[…]

“It’s officially against corporate policy for us to hand out oil barrels,” the 37-year-old Mitchell frets. “We really don’t know what to do about all this.”

For many of the world’s estimated 35,000 panmen, the sweetest-sounding music comes from the 55-gallon, 20-gauge red steel oil barrels made in Shell’s lubricant mixing plant on Barracones Bay in Trinidad.

(Via Sore Eyes)

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this article on cat communication.

Humans love eye contact — it is friendly. For a cat, prolonged eye contact is an assertive, or even threatening, signal. The classic case is when several people are in a room for a social occasion and the host’s cat walks in. It unerringly goes towards the person who doesn’t like cats. Is it simply being perverse? The answer is in eye contact. Cat lovers will be watching the cat, hoping it goes to greet them. Those who don’t particularly like cats will ignore it, hoping it will leave them alone. For the cat, the eye contact made by the cat lovers is somewhat threatening. It avoids them. The people who don’t particularly like cats are not making eye contact — to the cat, they are signalling that they pose no threat. They are being polite in cat terms, so it goes to socialise with them.

Cutting out the middle-man:

President Bush nominated infinitely rapacious cosmic entity Galactus on Thursday to be his new interior secretary.

If confirmed by the Senate, Galactus, 11 Billion, will replace Gale Norton, who resigned last week.

Bush said Galactus, Third Force of the Universe and Devourer of Worlds, wields the Power Cosmic and has broad experience needed for eating the 388 parks of the National Park system, 544 wildlife refuges and more than 260 million acres of multiple-use lands located mainly in 12 Western states, in addition to the rest of the planet.

“Galan understands that those who live closest to the land know how to manage it best, and he will begin preparations to digest our planet immediately,” Bush said.

(c.f. its inspiration)

This This Modern World cartoon features grainy 18th century engravings of a Roman orgy, retouched to remove anything explicit, in service of a point about the public being distracted from important issues by the salacious. There are a couple of breasts visible, but no genitalia. It’s clearly a depiction of group sex, but it’s difficult to imagine whose prurient interests could possibly be aroused by it. It was censored by Kuwaiti customs.

Stuff from Amazon usually gets to Kuwait no problem, although 9 times out of 10 it is opened by customs to check if it contains any pornographic material or material considered to be an afront to Islam. Censorship is rife here, and although almost any magazine or newspaper you can think of is sold in the bookshops (from Harper’s to Cosmo to USA Today… I kid you not), any photo that is slightly ‘fleshy’ or depicts images of ‘god’ is swiftly seen to with a big black pen. If there is an entire offending article, or the questionable picture is really big, they just rip the whole damn page out. It’s rather frustrating, as you may be halfway through an article about ETA activity in Spain, only to discover that the last page has been printed on the back of a Calvin Klien advert, and then you’re stuffed.

Anyway, to get to the point, the officers at the Kuwaiti customs found something offensive in your book. I got to page 172, only to discover that page 173 - 4 had been roughly torn out.

The cartoon also caused a ruckus during its original domestic publication six years ago.

When Anderson saw the strip, he hit the roof. The strip, he said, showed “people doing all types of sexual activities — oral sex, anal sex, group sex, bondage, torture, everything imaginable. You do not need to show illegal stuff to get a political point across.” Anderson said he didn’t even read the strip until he’d looked at it three times (possibly proving Perkins’ point). […]

The outraged citizenry also showed up en masse to a school board meeting in Moore County, a suburb of Oklahoma City, where they denounced the strip and the Gazette. Not coincidentally, Bill Bleakley, the paper’s publisher, is also a principal in the law firm that represents the Moore school district. The law firm’s $40,000- to-$60,000 contract with the school district, which was up for renewal at the beginning of the meeting, was not renewed. Lee Bocock, vice president of the school district, declined to comment in her official capacity on whether the cartoon influenced the school board’s decision not to renew. But she said she personally was offended by it. “When you’ve got group sex in a cartoon, frame after frame, the point is, ‘Who cares if we all have multiple sex partners’ — which is a gross lie,” she says. When asked if it was fair to punish Bleakley’s law firm for something his paper, a separate entity, did, Bocock responded: “I don’t personally see how a person can wear two hats.”

OCAF’s Anderson denies that his group was involved in the campaign to put pressure on Bleakley’s law firm, but says he supports the school board’s decision. He also says he believes that the very fact Bleakley published a paper that would run such filth raised questions about his capacity to practice law fairly. “If he is representing the school and a little girl is raped in the restroom and he’s the type of guy that runs this cartoon in the newspaper, whose side do you think he’ll be on? I think he’d be very biased.”

Because, clearly, if you own a newspaper, and you’ve hired an editorial staff capable of running a cartoon with grainy depictions of sex, then you would have natural sympathy with a child-rapist.

=v= In the long obituary for Kenneth Galbraith in today's Times, I came across this:

Mr. Galbraith married Catherine Merriam Atwater, the daughter of a prominent New York lawyer and a ling, whom he met when she was a graduate student ...

Naturally, I wondered what a ling is. Grrl Friday suggested it was short for "linguist," but a linguist would surely be annoyed by the ambiguous sentence structure -- does the term refer to Galbraith's wife or mother-in-law? According to the dictionary, one of these women is either a fish or a flower.