An Eccentric School of Thought

Personal Dialects

2012-01-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

Imagine that I say a word to you. Imagine that this is a word that you know very well -- you have heard it many times in many contexts, and you have naturally learned the concept that it embodies. Now imagine that I have learned the word in the same way, gleaning the definition by seeing it applied. If we each learned it through our own experiences, and your life has been different from mine, is it even possible for the word I know and the word you know to be exactly the same? I don't see how it is.

Let's take the idea further. Imagine that I say a sentence to you. This sentence is composed of many words, but all of the words are ones that you and I both have learned in the courses of our lives. Furthermore, the grammar of it -- the meaning intrinsic to the order in which I placed the words -- is something that you and I have learned to interpret by means of our personal experiences with language. If the meanings of the words are dependant on our unique pasts, as is the way these words interact with each other, then you and I will see two entirely different meanings within the one sentence.

One more step. Imagine that you read a blog post that I write. It is composed of many sentences, and each of those is composed of many words -- and the words and sentences alike draw from our unique pasts to gain meaning. These sentences are strung together, each with individual meaning, but placed in a particular order with common threads running between them to carry a larger message. As with the smaller parts, the way we form the singular thoughts into a larger mosaic depends entirely on how we have learned that statements fit together. From the top to the bottom, the blog post is built from pieces that the two of us can never see in quite the same light.

A Criticism of a Criticism of a Criticism

2012-01-12T22:22:00.000-05:00

There's a new viral video wherein a man recites a poem he wrote, railing against certain views of Christianity. Watch it, if you haven't already.

Now, there's also an article going around which criticizes that video. Read it, if you haven't already.

I don't like that article. I see some issues in it. Here's my analysis of it:

Fitzgerald begins his criticism of Jesus>Religion by talking about one of Bethke's other poems, trying to build a sentiment against him without actually saying anything about the poem in question. This goes on for an entire paragraph. I won't dissect that paragraph in detail — I'm just going to dismiss the entire thing as irrelevant.

In the third paragraph, Fitzgerald finally begins criticizing the poem. He doesn't actually say much about it. There's just a sarcastic statement which implicitly questions the very notion of "chains of religion" without actually offering an argument against the idea, and accusations of "false dichotomies and outright bad theology." Maybe in later paragraphs he'll expand on what, exactly, he means by that. Let's read on and see!

Fitzgerald says that Bethke "begins by suggesting that Jesus came to abolish religion". What he's failing to recognize is that this is a poem, not an essay. Words have different meanings than they do in prose, sculpted over the course of the poem. Clearly, "religion" does not mean the same thing here as it does in common English. Of course Jesus didn't want to abolish the belief in cosmic forces and entities which underlie the universe and give it meaning. To claim such would be absurd — he was, after all, a religious man himself. Bethke is giving the word "religion" a new meaning for his own purpose, and Fitzgerald ignores that.

Fitzgerald claims that the statement that "Republican doesn't automatically mean Christian" is off-topic. Is he even listening to the poem? The entire thing is about misguided notions of what it means to be Christian. Bethke is criticizing instutionalized, standardized approaches to religion, particularly those with the tendency to condemn groups which they classify as "sinners". In the United States, one aspect of this is that people who espouse conservative values — which are traditionally the mainstay of the Republican party — often call them "Christian values". Bethke is criticizing that. He does not think that those values are what true Christian values were intended to be, even if they have been values within various denominations for a long time.

Fitzgerald identifies one of Bethke's statements as playing "right into the hand of the so-called New Atheists". Now that is just sensationalism. There is no actual criticism there. He's just implicitly identifying "New Atheists" (whatever those are) as the enemy, and saying that Bethke is naively helping them along, without actually saying how or why that makes him necessarily wrong.

Then Fitzgerald says something that I, frankly, find hilarious. "See, he’s not actually on about religion, but about people whose expression of their faith doesn’t match his criteria. It’s not religious people he’s talking about, it’s what we used to call Sunday Christians." Yes, Fitzgerald, you are exactly right! That is, in fact, what he is using the word "religion" to mean! Except he's broadening it a bit — Bethke is also including the people who embrace their religion all week long, but focus on the rules rather than the sentiment. If you follow all the rules of your religion, but you never give a dime except when required, and you harshly condemn with an unforgiving attitude anyone who commits certain sins, then, according to Bethke, you are not truly in the spirit of it. Bethke is taking issue with the people who focus on the religion itself, not the faith and love behind it.

A few times, Fitzgerald claims that Bethke departs from the subject of religion. I'm honestly not sure where he's seeing that. And he pulls out a few nitpicky criticisms, like pointing out a slant rhyme, in an attempt to worsen the reader's opinion of Bethke. It's a good rhetorical trick — specifically, it's damaging Bethke's ethos — but, ultimately, it doesn't mean Fitzgerald is right in anything that he says. Those irrelevant details should be ignored in considering what both of them are saying.

Fitzgerald spends a few paragraphs doing little more than quote Bethke, then, at the end of it, says, "Where do we begin?" I would ask the same question, because it doesn't seem like Fitzgerald ever actually does begin on some of his arguments. Here's that accusation of false dichotomies again, but he's not naming what they are or why they're false. Then he questions a few statements: "Religion is an infection? Religion puts you in bondage? Religion makes you blind?" He never really refutes them, though. Keeping in mind Bethke's unique definition of "religion" for the purpose of this poem...yeah, all those statements seem to ring true. It's an infection in that this particular type of faith which Bethke dislikes does spread from person to person and, in his eyes, damage them. It puts people in bondage because they feel bound to follow the rules, rather than inspired to follow their morals. It makes people blind in that they do not see what is, in Bethke's opinion, the true Christian path.

Fitzgerald claims, "What Bethke is actually railing against is people whose expression of religion doesn’t look like he believes it should." Yeah. Yeah he is. That's what Fitzgerald is doing to Bethke, too. That's what everyone does when they express what they think religion should be like. Criticism implies disagreement, and disagreement implies an opinion. I don't see a problem here.

In Fitzgerald's closing, he summarizes his point that what Bethke is criticizing isn't actually religion as a whole, but a particular manifestation of religion. I'm astounded that he thinks that needs to be said. It's pretty clear, isn't it? That's the whole point of the poem. But Fitzgerald states it like it's a piercing insight into poorly chosen words. I think it's quite obvious that Bethke is building a specific concept, drawing a dichotomy between what he calls "religion" and what he calls "Christianity". He could just as easily have picked "doctrine" and "faith", or "rules" and "heart". It's a poem. Interpret it like one.

Fitzgerald seems to be good at scoffing, but bad at actually constructing arguments. Maybe he has some good reasons to dismiss Bethke. He never actually said most of them, though. The only ones that he did state were based on very literal interpretations of the poem. Which is rather like responding to "I have a frog in my throat" with "There's no way you swallowed a whole frog."

A Distinction and a Difference

2011-12-08T21:24:00.001-05:00

A gay comedian performed at our school today. That's how he was described: "a gay comedian". His name was mentioned mostly in passing, except when he was actually announced on the stage. The rest of the time, he was "a gay comedian" that our local Gay Straight Alliance hired to perform. I see a problem. The GSA is drawing a distinction, and they are hurting their own cause by doing so.

Let's consider racism for parallels. Racism certainly exists here and now, but we can all agree that it isn't nearly to the extent that it was half a century ago, yes? Part of the reason is that we honestly do not see the distinction to the extent that we did decades ago. One of my closest friends is black. I'm well aware that he's black. But I don't really think about it. If I'm asked to describe what he's like, I'll say that he's a friendly guy. I'll say that he's involved in a ridiculous number of extracurricular activities. I'll say that he can be a bit self-centered at times, but in the end he is honestly a decent person. I'll say that he's gay. But I will not say that he's black until I'm asked about his physical appearance.

So why would I say that he's gay, but not that he's black? Why is his orientation a larger part of my idea of his identity? The simple answer is that it's mentioned a lot. The more complicated answer is that all sides of society seem to be trying to carve it out as a separate category. There is a large effort in LGBT activism to build a sense of LGBT community. The effects of this activism work in concert with homophobic efforts, creating a general view among everyone that we are somehow separate. There is a common link between the discriminatory comments of certain public figures and the activists' attempts to unite us under a rainbow flag: they all draw a distinction.

The simple fact is that we cannot have the equality that we want if we continue displaying ourselves as a separate category. The message that we convey is that we are different from the norm. What we need to do is make it normal. What we need to do is treat it as no big deal that we're different in that one way. Every time we proclaim our orientation as something to take note of, people really do take note of it more than they did before. They perpetuate the label, the distinction, and, therefore, the possibility for discrimination. That really isn't what we want.

Rhetor

2011-12-05T14:28:00.001-05:00

Show me the method of seeing the universe;
I am untrained, I am vulgar and ignorant.
Tell me your notion of how to imagine; my
mind is unbridled, but I need it tame.

My prior experience, childhood fantasy.
Laughable, really, and none of it usable.
Savage ideas. But I now know the dictum:
The first one to think something has to be wrong.

Unbroken (version 2)

2011-11-09T22:42:00.002-05:00

The sacred silence, savored by the students in the sanctum
strains to show the silken flow of simple, solemn scenes.
But chivalrous, the scrapes and shuffles, stopped, subdued, and stifled
seem to sound, support, surround, declare the smallest deed.

(I think this one accomplishes more fully what I was trying to do with the alliteration.)

Unbroken

2011-11-06T02:58:00.000-05:00

The sacred silence, savored by the students in the sanctum
strains to show the silken flow of simple, solemn scenes.
But chivalrous, the imperfections, rising to the summit,
seem to sound, support, resound, ignite the smallest act.

Brittle

2011-10-26T23:11:00.000-04:00

This was actually written as a song, but I'm not entirely happy with the melody I've come up with. Also I don't have the means to accompany it with any instruments. But the lyrics aren't quite awful. So here they are.

I don't know what I want to say
I think I'll say it anyway
I never get it right
And so I never sleep at night
And I'm in love with the idea of love
I'm prayin' to the stars above
But I don't hear a voice
And I don't think I get a choice in that

I don't
Want to be awake
I do not know what I can take
I am afraid that I will break
'Cause I am brittle
At risk from curiosity
A champion of heresy
I'm on my feet, I'm on my knees
It's killin' me

I don't know where I want to go
I'm not sure if I'll ever know
I know it isn't far
'Cause I can't even drive a car
But just believe me, I am happy here
I think, I guess, it isn't clear
My throat is getting sore
And you just tell me if I bore you, please

I don't
Want to be awake
I do not know what I can take
I am afraid that I will break
'Cause I am brittle
At risk from curiosity
A champion of heresy
I'm on my feet, I'm on my knees
It's killin' me

My resolutions need to start
I think I've had a change of heart
This time it's really true
And I will prove myself to you
But wait, I think we're getting hasty here
I think I need to be more clear
I know I need to change
I'm just a little too deranged for that

I don't
Want to be awake
I do not know what I can take
I am afraid that I will break
'Cause I am brittle
At risk from curiosity
A champion of heresy
I'm on my feet, I'm on my knees
It's killin' me

I want to be awake
There isn't much that I can take
But really even if I break
I'll just be brittle
A cat needs curiosity
I can't submit to destiny
I'm on my feet, I'm on my knees

A Lover Covets Love

2011-09-15T04:53:00.000-04:00

Love, debasing,
luring, chasing,
never thought to be a flaw, but
now erasing,
warring, pacing,
beats the heart and wears it raw.

Have a flower,
hunger, power.
He loves you, and you love that he'd
wait an hour,
gloomy, dour,
just to know you love him back.

Feeling happy,
warm and sappy,
nothing sweeter, sweetest fall from
feeling crappy,
twitchy, tappy,
angry that he didn't call.

Now you're weaker,
smaller, meeker.
You don't want to be alone so
you're a shrieker,
crier, weeper,
can't go back, and can't atone.

Trapped by needing,
begging, bleeding,
best to force it, make it fit in
what you're seeding,
growing, breeding.
Work the land and never quit.

Prophecy

2011-05-06T22:56:00.002-04:00

A mountebank will teach a man that reckless faith is grief;
no prophet brings an iron word to men who know a thief.

Tock

2011-03-10T11:07:00.001-05:00

The mainspring of the clock unwinds,
but mine is tight; each tick reminds.
Eternal cadence binds me short:
no time for work, no time for sport,
for each of two will rob the one.
Though time is endless, I have none.

God and Absolute Morality

2011-03-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

Contrary to the common conception of the Abrahamic god as being purely good, the Bible actually makes it clear, in quite explicit terms, that he is the creator of both good and evil and that he will use both to achieve his goals (1 Samuel 16:14, Isaiah 45:7, etc.). Now, the common presumption is that his overall goal is the greater good, but clearly this cannot be if he uses evil in its pursuit. If we look at his practices throughout the Bible, the only other goal he seems to be pursuing is the ensurance that the Israelites worship and obey him -- it is really not a point of contention that he has this goal, but there are some unsettling implications to it when his essential morality is called into question.

If God is purely good, then devotion to and obedience of him can be regarded as devotion to and obedience of the concept of "Good", which would, of course, be a good thing to do and a good thing to ask of Israel. However, as established above, God is not purely good. This means that his demands for worship are not so much demands to be good as they are demands to be obedient to all things he does, good and evil. This cannot possibly be regarded as an essentially good thing, and is therefore just a form of tyranny. Furthermore, the indiscriminate use of good or evil means to a selfish end is itself quite evil, and this is the central behavior of the god of the Bible.

Thus, if the Bible is perfectly true and accurate, then God is evil. Seeing as how he hasn't killed us all yet, he's probably not evil -- it's more likely that the Bible has some falsities.

Mortality

2011-02-06T21:16:00.002-05:00

This life is futile, bounded twice: birth brought me late and death shall take me early. No work produces permanence, and play cannot sustain itself, so our labors and our loves fail to leave a mark. My words will dissolve in the vastness of time, and even time will end and swallow all traces of me.

My Fire

2011-01-24T12:50:00.002-05:00

A bit of boasting burns a bridge,
and brashly will I kindle.
With sickly glow,
the fire's low,
but prideful flames won't dwindle.

Eternal blaze, I covet you
while you drive me to covet.
You cause me strife
but give me life;
I hate you and I love it.

You drive the lively forest back
by poisoning my vision;
I see a face
of friendly grace,
but your smoke paints derision.

I'd like to snuff you, but I won't;
I feel compelled to feed you.
I'll let you stay
again today,
but say that I don't need you.

Impotent Support

2010-12-04T14:25:00.003-05:00

There's a chain status going around in Facebook right now:

Changeyour FB profile [picture] to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal? to not see ahuman face on FB till monday, december 6th. join the fight against child abuse and copy and paste to your status to invite your friends to do the same..

That won't stop anyone from abusing children, nor from ignoring child abuse when they see it. The gesture simply lacks impact.

There is, first of all, a very weak connection between old cartoons and child abuse, and this tenuous link carries no emotional force. When I see Pinky and The Brain, I don't think "Oh, those poor children"; I think "One is a genius, the other's insane". These images hold for us memories of mindless entertainment, not tragedies in need of fixing, and so a smattering of old cartoon characters won't inspire anyone to action.

This is all based on the ridiculous idea that "spreading awareness" of an issue (that is to say, mentioning it and doing nothing else) will alleviate it. If anyone is in a position to stop someone from abusing a child, they already know that the child is being abused (or if they don't, this crusade won't tell them what qualifies as abuse or whether any particular child whom they can help is being abused). I am fully aware of the fact that some children are beaten and molested, but my knowing doesn't stop it from happening. Even if I see it and find myself in a position to stop it, seeing the Rugrats on Facebook won't be the thing that spurs me into action.

Sports Fanaticism

2010-11-29T16:40:00.000-05:00

Sports fanaticism is delusion.

When we care about something, we develop sympathetic feelings for it. This is advantageous because it compels us to guide our offspring and those in whom we find merit to excellence. Sports fanaticism is this sort of attachment, but it is artificial. We have no loss or gain by the outcome of a sporting event, and the only merits we see in these teams are terminal; that is, they do not lead to anything further than the inconsequential sporting event. Our passion is much better spent in supporting something we can actually influence, and which can influence other things for the better.

Gall

2010-11-13T15:45:00.003-05:00

How dare I laugh and play a game?
How dare I look for pleasure?
I'm selfish, starving for my glut,
a pig by any measure.

And no-one in the world (apart
from ev'ry other devil)
would dare to grin at idle thoughts
or close his eyes and revel.

For open eyes would see the stains
upon his merrymaking.
With ev'ry feast, a thousand starve.
We're cruel to not be aching.

Our joy is local, hoarded here;
we drakes adore our gold.
And dragonslayers, though they fight,
are killed for being bold.

But even now, apologetic,
I confess to smiling.
My verse — pretentious, pithy tripe —
delights me in its styling.

So I'm a monster. I confess.
Now burn me with the lumber.
But add a bit of hickory;
the other monsters hunger.

Book review: The Kite Runner

2010-10-29T22:31:00.004-04:00

I normally wouldn't post something like this to AESOT, but I'm proud of it and I want my ego to have a place for memorabilia.

To anyone reading this review who has not read the book: here there be spoilers. Except not really, because Khaled Hosseini spoils his own book thoroughly.

Despite the author's best efforts to make us sympathize with Amir, the hero of the story, it is abundantly clear from the outset that Amir is, all in all, a total jackass. He's not evil in the way that the villain Assef is, but he's just as selfish and nearly as mean. The prime difference between the protagonist and the antagonist is that Amir is wussier than Assef, so Amir and his "friend" -- that is to say, "patsy" -- Hassan end up being the downtrodden party. But Amir forces Hassan into doing things he doesn't want to do, lets him take the blame for wrongdoings, and, to top it all off, lets him get raped. Yet we're supposed to sympathize enough with Amir to care when tragedy befalls him?

And speaking of tragedy, this book is so drenched in sorrow that I would not have been surprised to find it torn to shreds from cutting itself. If you can reliably predict the next thing that's going to happen by figuring out what the most tragic possibility is, then something went wrong. It is seriously the most depressing thing I have ever read, which might have been forgivable if the utter lack of surprise twists hadn't made it feel like I read it before. It had maybe one half-twist. Of course, that would make it a Möbius strip, so that might explain why it felt so predictably familiar as I re-walked the single tragic surface over and over and over and...

But even where the tragedy switches from a crashing wave of tears to an undertow which will inevitably drag you back in kicking and screaming, the foreshadowing ruins it. It's not even foreshadowing, really. Hosseini seems to think that foreshadowing is supposed to say, "This is what will happen. I thought I'd warn you." NO! That is not how you do it! If we know how it's going to turn out before we finish, what's the point of reading it? For instance, during the climax of the book, when Amir is about to enter the house and fight Assef (NO, THAT IS NOT A SPOILER. WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE?), it says quite plainly that it would be the last time for a while that Amir was eating solid food. If he won't be eating solid food for a while, that means he survived. Considering who he's fighting, he would need to win in order to survive. So basically, the author just told us that he wins. Well thanks for that, Hitchcock! He ruined the suspense! In his attempt to add tension to the thread of the story, he pulled too hard and it snapped, causing the tapestry (a shoddily-woven tapestry depicting nothing more artistic than a frowny face, but a tapestry nonetheless) to fall apart right as he was about to finish it.
Except no, he wasn't about to finish it. This book seems to really be three stories, all stapled together at the last minute with a few words changed so they connect a little better. First, there's the story of Amir's childhood, which ends with him pulling a dick move and forcing Hassan to leave. Second, there's the story of him going to America and finding a wife. This second section is fully one-third of the story, and its ONLY PURPOSE to the rest of the plot is to give Amir somewhere to take Sohrab for the last two pages. Time well spent! It was a nice diversion from the story, because I need my breaks built into the book; I can't be bothered to just set it down and pick something else up when I want to read an irrelevant story. The third story is of Amir going back to Afghanistan to rescue Sohrab, and it consists entirely of parallels to the first story which are meant to make me think "I see what you did there", but more often make me think "I saw what you were going to do there ten pages back". And this section of the book goes on far too long after the climax. He rescued Sohrab. Hooray, happy ending! ...wait, why are there still more chapters?

For the remainder of the book, Sohrab tries to kill himself, runs away, and generally makes it very difficult for Amir to bring him somewhere not quite as miserable without resorting to handcuffs and duct tape. The only loose end tied up in the last few chapters is the one regarding how they actually get to America, and that could easily have been left for the reader to figure out. The only purpose I see of letting this loose end linger for several chapters is so that it can lash out at the reader with more tragedy and punish us for not snapping the book closed and BURNING IT ALREADY.

(Inspired by the review style of Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw.)

Please note that this was originally written to answer someone who asked me what I didn't like about the book, and it is posted here primarily for humor; the book does have its merits, and Hosseini does show some significant writing skill (but in my opinion the book is still not very good).

Shallowness

2010-10-29T16:43:00.001-04:00

Society's values regarding love are self-contradictory. We view love based on physical appeal as shallow and imperfect, but our views of sexual orientation imply that love is predicated on some degree of lust.

There are men with feminine personalities, and women with masculine personalities, so the body is the only constant difference between the two genders; that is to say, gender is a physical fact, but not a mental or emotional one.
It is acceptable, at the very least, for someone to be heterosexual.

But if a man rejects a perfectly nice woman based on her physical appearance, he is declared a pig. This is not very different from a man rejecting a perfectly nice man based on his gender. They are different extents of the same irresistible influence of lust, and therefore if we do not condemn the latter, we should not condemn the former.

"... reason is still there accusing the baseness and injustice of the passions and disturbing the peace of those who give way to them, and the passions are still alive in those who want to reject them." —Blaise Pascal

Constellation Analogy

2010-07-02T21:28:00.005-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Think of ideas as stars, and religions as constellations. When you looked into the night sky for the first time, you saw countless points of light; some were bright and obvious while others were dim and hard to spot, but they were all beautiful. But then someone pointed to a few of those stars and drew lines between them. Over time, you learned to see a constellation in the sky whenever you look at those stars, and now you don't even think about the fact that those connections were invented. They have become just as natural as the stars themselves, and the beauty of the stars is somewhat dependant on the lines between them. Stars that aren't connected become mundane; you ignore them as you look for your constellation, and smile only when you find it. To have a good perspective, you need to appreciate all of the stars, not just the ones that are part of your constellation.

Time Travel

2009-12-27T01:54:00.005-05:00

I will preface this by saying that someone else may have (in fact, probably has) thought of this before I did. The concept of a multiverse is certainly not mine, but if someone else has thought of its applications to time travel I assure you that I did so independently of them.

Assume that there is such a thing as the multiverse, the set of all possible states of the universe. Every time an event occurs with a random outcome, there exists for each possibility a universe in which that possibility is the one that occurred. Thus, when performing the famous double-slit experiment, there exists a universe in which the photon passes through the first slit, a universe in which the photon passes through the second slit, a universe in which the photon strikes the surface between the two slits, a universe in which the photon strikes a different spot on the surface between the two slits, a universe in which the photon fails to fire at all due to a power fluctuation, etc.

Now, let's consider two specific universes within this multiverse: universe Alpha and universe Beta. We will be looking at three points in time within each of these universes: moment 1, moment 2, and moment 3. Both of these universes contain an inventor named Joe. At moment 1 in universe Alpha (moment 1A), the Joe of universe Alpha (Joe-A) creates a time machine. At moment 2A, there is only one Joe present and he is still alive; this may seem inconsequential now, but its relevance will become apparent. At moment 3A, Joe-A uses the time machine to travel back to moment 2 and meet the Joe that he finds there. According to a common interpretation of time travel, Joe-A meets himself at moment 2A. However, we have already seen that there is only one Joe at moment 2A. Either there is one Joe at moment 2A, or there are two; both cannot be true. Because we already know from previous experience as absolute fact that there was a only one Joe at moment 2A, it must be true that we are not looking at moment 2A; we are now looking at moment 2B, and Joe-A has met Joe-B.

Now suppose that Joe-A kills Joe-B at moment 2B. When moment 3B arrives, the deceased Joe-B is no longer able to use his time machine to go back and kill himself. Had this scenario been played out on a single timeline in a single universe, causality would be violated by a classic temporal paradox. However, the existence of the multiverse means that both possibilities (that Joe is alive and that Joe is dead) can exist simultaneously.

In the course of looking up a few terms while typing this, I came across this, which shows that this is not, in fact, an original idea. Alas. I'll post it anyway, because it's still interesting and because I spent so much time on it.

Super Magritte Bros.

2009-08-20T02:25:00.006-04:00

Well, this one requires a bit of esoteric knowledge of art, but I don't think it's too obscure. If you don't know what the French phrase means, it means "this is not a pipe". If you still don't get the joke, I suppose I can give you uncultured ignoramuses a SPOILER.

And don't challenge me on calling you uncultured ignoramuses. I've got no basis for it. If you try to prove me wrong, you will succeed. Congratulations, you win. I bow down to your superior ability to be improperly insulted.

Visual Pun: Loud Communism

2009-08-03T09:27:00.008-04:00

This one speaks for itself. Or rather, it shouts.

Nonsense for the Nonce: Eccenter

2009-08-02T08:13:00.006-04:00

ec-cen-ter (ik-sen-ter, ek-)

-noun

the source, basis, or essence of an eccentricity
the reason or meaning behind eccentric behavior
an easy first blog post to explain a made-up term used in said blog