2 Days Away

A friend of mine sent me P.J. O'Rourke's piece on Tuesday's election. He's a humorist, so he gets to exaggerate and generalize for effect.

His funniest comment is:

This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order.

I do think the Democrats badly mangled their mandate from the last election. Obama ran as a reasonable moderate who wanted to end partisan bickering. I would say this was their actual mandate. But, intoxicated with their majority status, they pivoted left.

If the polls are correct,
they're about to be checked.

Today

Throughout the city one constantly meets
costumed monsters roaming the streets
threatening tricks and demanding treats.

From Struwwelpeter to Devilish Children

We've now done 2 performances of Devilish Children. (That's me behind the scary duck mask.)

I'm in the cast, which is great fun.

The show is an adaptation of rhymed fables (Der Struwwelpeter) by 19th century German psychiatrist, Heinrich Hoffman. These fables take the form of cautionary tales intended for children, in which dire consequences were visited upon misbehaving kids. The tone was humorous, and the whole thing was probably intended partly as a satire of this genre of literature.

There's a nice English version online here, with pictures.

Jeremy Menekseoglu, in adapting the work, made some major architectural changes. He remodeled some of the separate stories and made it one continuous emotional journey. A naughty 3-year old, Karl, is dropped off at an old theater, which is now being run as a sort of boarding school of good manners. But the school is run by devilish children who instruct Karl by graphically staging the scary fables. We also learn that there is more to the school, and the children, than at first meets the eye.

It's not always easy being a kid.
Everyone's always correcting you.
You have to learn to keep a lid
on so many things you'd like to do.

Opening

We opened Devilish Children And The Civilizilng Process last night.

Things seemed to go well
On our fearful and funny trip through child rearing hell.

Mimic Octopus

Tyler Cowen calls this video "1:49 of wow". Presenting the mimic octopus:



Not content to be one shape,
this octopus twists its features
to ape
various creatures.

Unwashed Middle

Katie Couric likes to stay in touch:

That’s why Couric has spent recent weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is touring what she calls “this great unwashed middle of the country” in an effort to divine the mood of the midterms.

Unwashed in Chicago? The funny thing is that she works in New York, which has dirtier streets than Chicago does.

But she's not talking about the streets. She's talking about me, isn't she?

Katie, honest, I took a shower.
And now I smell a fresh as a flower.

Love at First Sight

An Elizabethan poet asked:

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

But now we can improve upon that estimate:

Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.

Exactly how they reckoned
it down to a fifth of a second
I'm really not sure.

Also, no word on a cure.

Distinguishing Forms of Faith

Newsweek has a story warning Left and Right not to confuse Islamism with the Muslim faith:

The left is wrongly defending Islamism—an extremist and at times violent ideology—which it confuses with the common person’s Islam, while the right is often wrongly attacking the Muslim faith, which it confuses with Islamism.

The authors write as if this is merely a failure of "The West" to understand. But the marketing strategy of the Islamists is precisely to brand themselves as the truest Muslims. If it's a failure of understanding, it's a failure that the Islamists are actively provoking.

What's more, the "common person's Islam" has not mounted a consistent counter-branding strategy.

So my request
is don't just criticize the West
for failing to understand
this confusion over the brand.

Perverse Incentives

The Chicago Tribune has a sad story about a family caught up in the housing collapse. They thought they could qualify for a re-setting of their monthly mortgage payment under the terms of the president's Home Affordable Modification Program.

But they made the mistake of being thrifty while they were waiting for approval:

The family's $7,160 in savings, including a $5,218 income tax refund, accumulated during the year it took the bank to review the application, meant they were too well off to qualify.

Too well off to qualify. But not well off enough to keep their house.

In retrospect, they should have blown their money
on... whatever. And no, it's not really funny.

Roles

We had a great rehearsal tonight for Devilish Children And The Civilizing Process at Dream Theatre, which opens Thursday... like 5 days away.

Also, I've been cast for the part of Dr. Baugh in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for a January production by the Munroe Park Theatre Guild.

Have you ever heard of Impostor Syndrome?

Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen field of work or study or what external proof they may have of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced internally they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.

I'm sure actors feel it too, sometimes. Which is ironic. Because the job of an actor is precisely to be an impostor.

Could there be, in fact,
people who only pretend to act?

Congo Catastrophe

Another type of airplane passenger to worry about:

A stowaway crocodile on a flight escaped from its carrier bag and sparked an onboard stampede that caused the flight to crash, killing 19 passengers and crew.

Note that these deaths were caused by human over-reaction to a fellow-creature who probably would have been satisfied with just one victim. I mean, how hungry could that croc be?

In the unlikely event of a crocodile
crawling along the airplane aisle,

there's no need

to stampede.

Just sit in your seat

and lift up your feet.

"I'm Not Dead Yet" - French Edition

During the last great healthcare debate, I was always hearing how great the socialized healthcare was in France.

Then there's this:

A woman pronounced "very certainly clinically dead" at a French hospital woke up hours later after her sons refused to turn off her life-support system, medics and the woman said.

"Very certainly clinically dead."
That is what her doctor said.

But she awoke and began to speak.
His diagnostic skills proved weak.

A Pointed Warning

One more thing to worry about - death by acupuncture:

A review of patients who died soon after acupuncture found a history of punctured hearts and lungs, damaged arteries and livers, nerve problems, shock, infection and haemorrhage, largely caused by practitioners placing their needles incorrectly or failing to sterilise their equipment.

Make them sterilize the needles for a start,
and ask them to avoid your lungs and heart.

Regulating Roadkill Consumption

Illinois Department of Natural Resources has a new requirement.

If you kill a deer with you car,
no matter how hungry you are,
you must notify the state
before you carve it on your plate.

Acrobatic Rodent

The squirrel runs from tree to tree
high on a wire, where all can see
but none can reach - safe from the dog
who licks his chops and stares agog.

Beware of Goat

You know to watch out for cougars and bears, but have you considered this deadly threat?

Rangers in Washington state suspect an encounter with a mountain goat killed a 63-year-old hiker in Olympic National Park.

By the way, Wikipedia says:

Despite its vernacular name, it is not a member of Capra, the genus of true goats.

Beware of this untrue goat
with his oh-so-innocent coat.

See how he is horned?
Consider yourself forewarned.

Education Has Consequences

Peter Berkowitz has an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal this morning. It ends like this:

Those who doubt that the failings of higher education in America have political consequences need only reflect on the quality of progressive commentary on the tea party movement. Our universities have produced two generations of highly educated people who seem unable to recognize the spirited defense of fundamental American principles, even when it takes place for more than a year and a half right in front of their noses.

So his thesis is that they literally don't get it.

But, it's clearly true that many progressives like to "jump to conclusions" that favor their cause. They ran incorrect meme after incorrect meme about the simplest aspects of the tea party people. It was obvious, to anyone who observed objectively, that racism was not a major motivating factor.

The Washington Post finally conceded that 2 days ago:

A new analysis of political signs displayed at a tea party rally in Washington last month reveals that the vast majority of activists expressed narrow concerns about the government's economic and spending policies and steered clear of the racially charged anti-Obama messages that have helped define some media coverage of such events.

Post-modern theories are involved in both - the failure to understand what the founders were about - and the willingness to misrepresent.

In post-modernism, politics is about the struggle among warring classes and interest groups. Quite alien to this is Madison's idea of getting above the fray and designing a system to contain the conflicting factions in a system of ordered liberty that allows individuals to get along in a productive fashion.

In post-modernism, truth is what your own group finds it useful to assert - in its verbal struggle with competing groups. Quite alien to this is Newton's idea of carefully observing facts and inferring necessary conclusions.

The war of the groups
involves willing dupes.

And No Helmets

German young women bicycle ballet gymnastics.

It's sort of fantastic.

Their Honeymoon Is Over Soon

It's been an odd rehearsal pattern for Devilish Children, because the director got married to one of the actresses last week - and they went to Disney World.

To make up for this scheduled hiatus, everything else has been on a tighter schedule than normal.

Monday, it begins again. At that point we'll be 10 days from opening night, which will bring critics... and voters from the Jeff Committee. No pressure.

At last, you must thrust
yourself onto the stage.

In a spirit of trust,
face the crowd and engage.

And live, as you must,
the tale from the page.

Other Culture

A female Lebanese pop-star is murdered by an rich Egyptian politician.

(They were an item, but his mom wouldn't let them marry, so the pop-star was dumping him.)

So what do Egyptian women think? Outraged, right? Yes, in a way:

“She made him kill her, and she deserves it,” said Sherine Moustafa, a 39-year-old Egyptian corporate lawyer, an opinion that was echoed by every woman of dozens interviewed.

Blaming a woman
for her own killing -
could moral opinion
get more chilling?