Watch “Sunny-A Funky Violin Cover w/ a Loop Station by Echae Kang 강이채” on YouTube
Here Come da Pope Updated
…mainstream media not flipped out over Donald Trump’s decision to go for dinner with his family in New York City without first informing the press.
I have a joke about that from last January — long before more serious allegations surfaced about Bill Clinton, nobody was talking about him at that time — nobody in my crowd, including myself, actually knew about anything but the Monica Lewinsky scandal — I actually was telling this joke quite a bit earlier but wrote it in my blog last January:
https://pinchinat.wordpress.com/page/5/
Here Come da Pope
JANUARY 29, 2016
When the Pope came to town recently, a lot of people were talking about the spiritual impact of his visit, how people were being nicer to one another, and so on. As a New York driver, I drew a somewhat different lesson: We should only elect philanderers, men who cheat on their wives, President. Huh, what? Do I hear you say? How on earth did you get that? I will tell you. It’s quite logical, really. What is it that the Pope is to all New Yorkers, irrespective of race, color, creed, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, sexual origin, dominant hand* or favorite musical instrument? Oh right, and religion? He’s a public figure. And what do all public figures have in common? They screw up traffic.
[I’m driving down the West Side Highway, they announce on the radio that Obama is going to Sylvia’s. BAM! The road blocks go up. The West Side Highway turns into a parking lot. I don’t even want to think about the FDR Drive.]
It being a Presidential election season and all, I’m surprised nobody’s thought of this quintissentially non-partisan perfect New York issue – they don’t have to keep their word, after all, I mean do they ever?** —
“if elected, I solemnly swear never, ever, ever under any circumstances to come here” (and screw up traffic.) Or at the very least, to have the common decency to sneak around like President Clinton, who, in fact, stayed in the oval office half the time, additionally providing an innovative spin on room service.
*yes, I really, seriously once had a left-handed boss who felt that he was a member of an oppressed minority in a right-handed world; in the ultimate real-life viola joke, I was told with a straight face by a young violist of her famous teacher who wrote a letter to a famous string magazine protesting viola jokes as a form of hate speech. In elementary school, I remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. If I knew then what I know now, I would have said, “oppressed.”
**”The Most important thing is sincerity. Once you can fake that, the rest is easy.” – George Burns
—
So, our Kobiyashi Maru*** President-Elect is, as is his wont, not only thinking outside the box, but reinventing it. Sneaking around — and thus not screwing up traffic — in order to be a good husband and family man!
***
“James T. Kirk’s test
James T. Kirk took the test three times while at Starfleet Academy. Before his third attempt, Kirk surreptitiously reprogrammed the simulator so that it was possible to rescue the freighter. Despite having cheated, Kirk was awarded a commendation for “original thinking”. This fact is revealed in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, as Kirk, Saavik and others are marooned. Saavik accuses Kirk of never having faced the no-win scenario. Kirk replies that he doesn’t believe in such a thing.”
Riot Unto the Nations
I feel like telling all the angry liberals that now Trump has won, they should feel elated not sad. For 16 years they’ve been blaming everything but the common cold on George W. Bush. I’m sure it’s gotten kind of old even for them. Now they’ve got a whole new scapegoat! Aint’ life just Grand!!
Terrific Kdrama by the way:
Assembly
Starring Jung Jae Young and Song Yoon Ah
Prior to being elected a national assembly member, Jin Sang Pil (Jung Jae Young) worked as a humble shipyard welder. Though brave and passionate about improving the country, Sang Pil unfortunately lacks the political knowledge and acumen needed to excel on the national scale. However, with the help of his intelligent and resourceful aid Choi In Kyung (Song Yoon Ah), Sang Pil just may be able to rise to the task.
Drama – 20 Total episodes | KBS2 | 2015
Go East, Young Person
Quite by accident, I stumbled across the cause of illegal immigration, very much an issue in this election cycle. I mean, why would people want to come here only to work for below minimum wage, with no benefits, few government services, living in constant fear. Why not Sweden or Holland, say?
Being, myself a Kdrama addict (that’s Korean Drama for the uninitiated), I turned my mother on to a Chinese drama on Dramafever or Viki*, and she liked it so much she wanted to recommend it to her friend in Italy. Upon looking into it, I discovered that due to copyright restrictions, her friend could not watch it in Italy.
And then it dawned on me. That’s why people are so desperate to come to America. Desperate enough to risk their very lives to reach The Promised Land, The Golden Door**. It’s the only place you can watch Korean Dramas! (which includes Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, etc. — Hallyu, for short — the Korean Hollywood.
Apart from those in the motherland, of course.
Though, I confess, I wonder how they manage without English subtitles??
Hmmm. {to be cont.]
I’m leaving first.
*
http://www.dramafever.com
http://viki.com
** Hold Back The Dawn aka The Golden Door. Great movie with Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland.
—
“Bring Out The Holy Hand Grenade”
Who would have guessed that there really were hand grenades back them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenade
Thank God There was No Wikipedia. There would have been No Monty Python!
3,500 Year Old Treasures Retrieved from the Sea by Electric Plant Worker
Published: August 23rd, 2016
Metal artifacts, the earliest of which are 3,500 years old, were recently presented to the Israel Antiquities Authority by a family that inherited them from their father who passed away.
The Mazliah family of Givatayim contacted a representative of the IAA and invited him to their home to examine numerous metal artifacts that were in the possession of their father, the late Marcel Mazliah. The family explained that their father, who was employed at the Hadera power station since its construction, retrieved many items from the sea while working there, and they thought the items looked pretty ancient. Indeed, the IAA representatives were surprised by what they found: metal objects, most of which are decorated, that apparently fell overboard from a metal merchant’s ship in the Early Islamic period.
According to Ayala Lester, a curator with the IAA, “The finds include a toggle pin and the head of a knife from the Middle Bronze Age (more than 3,500 years ago). The other items, among them two mortars and two pestles, and fragments of candlesticks, date to the Fatimid period (11th century CE). The items were apparently manufactured in Syria and were brought to Israel. The finds are evidence of the metal trade that was conducted during this period.”
Among the many artifacts is a hand grenade that was common in Israel during the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. The first grenades appeared in the Byzantine Empire, not long after the reign of Leo III (717-741). Byzantine soldiers learned that Greek fire, a Byzantine invention of the previous century, could be thrown at the enemy inside stone and ceramic jars. Later, glass containers were employed. The use of Greek fire and other explosives spread to Muslim armies in the Middle East, and reached China by the 10th century.
The Mazliah family will receive a certificate of appreciation from the Israel Antiquities Authority and will be invited to tour the IAA’s laboratories where finds undergo treatment and conservation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/
Through A [Smartphone] Screen Darkly
Through a Screen Darkly
[Reference to
“A Scanner Darkly (2006) – Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scanner_darkly/
Rotten Tomatoes
Dec 19, 2006 – Critic Consensus: A faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel, A Scanner Darklytakes the viewer on a visual and mind-blowing journey into …”]
Time was, everybody wanted bigger and bigger screens. In the 20s, 30s and 40s, we had Movie Palaces. In the 50’s and 60’s, we had drive-in theaters. In the ‘70s, we had sensurround: the screen and speakers wrapped all the way around the theater. That’s how we watched, “Towering Inferno” and “Krakatoa, East of Java.”
“Sensurround is the brand name for a process developed by Cerwin-Vega in conjunction with Universal Studios to enhance the audio experience during film screenings, specifically for the 1974 film Earthquake.
Sensurround – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround
Wikipedia”
Then, as theaters competed with cable tv, and videos, and real-estate prices soared, the screens got smaller and smaller and the tickets got pricier and pricier. Then they started getting bigger again.
Too late.
Now, I just want to watch from the comfort of my own phone.
—-
Of all my routines, my favorite — in which I probably, albeit unintentionally, invented a new genre — was what I call a “Billiards Routine”, in which the actual audience for the joke consisted of a secondary incidental audience of bystanders who laughed at the reaction of the first audience. I started to tell a wide-eyed but musically ignorant group about the hard life that Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries led and finished with saying that that’s why they called it, “The Baroque Era”, because people were too poor to afford concert tickets.
Moreover, I told them, since the A had yet to go up to 440, they were flat Baroque. Now, that they were totally cynical about anything i would tell them — the boy who cried wolf syndrome — I began to explain how important coffee was as a symbolic drink to the thinkers of the Enlightenment and so that’s why Bach wrote his “Coffee Cantata”, at which they went: “Yeah, right, sure he did.”
At which point the secondary audience of casual onlookers — conservatory-educated classical musicians who just happened to be looking on, and of whose presence I had been unaware, laughed.
“J.S. Bach’s Comic Opera, “The Coffee Cantata,” Sings the Praises of the Great Stimulating Drink (1735)
in Music, Opera| June 12th, 2014 3 Comments
4k
SHARES
From the time that a nameless genius in either Ethiopia or Yemen decided to dry, crush and strain water through a berry known for making goats nervous and jumpy, coffee has been loved and worshiped like few other beverages. Early Arab doctors proclaimed the stuff to be a miracle drug. Thoroughly caffeinated thinkers from Voltaire to Jonathan Swift to Jack Kerouac debated literature, philosophy and everything in between at coffee houses. Author Honoré Balzac even reportedly diedbecause of excessive coffee drinking (it was either that or the syphilis.)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was also apparently a coffee enthusiast. So much so that he wrote a composition about the beverage. Although known mostly for his liturgical music, his Coffee Cantata (AKA Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, BWV 211) is a rare example of a secular work by the composer. The short comic opera was written (circa 1735) for a musical ensemble called The Collegium Musicum based in a storied Zimmerman’s coffee house in Leipzig, Germany. The whole cantata seems very much to have been written with the local audience in mind.
Coffee Cantata is about a young vivacious woman named Aria who loves coffee. Her killjoy father is, of course, dead set against his daughter having any kind of caffeinated fun. So he tries to ban her from the drink. Aria bitterly complains:
Father sir, but do not be so harsh!
If I couldn’t, three times a day,
be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee,
in my anguish I will turn into
a shriveled-up roast goat.
Ah! How sweet coffee tastes,
more delicious than a thousand kisses,
milder than muscatel wine.
Coffee, I have to have coffee,
and, if someone wants to pamper me,
ah, then bring me coffee as a gift!
The copywriters at Starbucks marketing department couldn’t have written it any better. Eventually, daughter and father reconcile when he agrees to have a guaranteed three cups of coffee a day written into her marriage contract. You can watch it in its entirety below, or get a quick taste above. The lyrics in German and English can be read here.”
Drinking is with People
[ reference to:
“Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl by Mark … – Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com › Literature › Jewish
Goodreads
Rating: 4 – 37 votes
Life is With People has 37 ratings and 8 reviews. Lewis said: Published in 1952, it provides a rich overview on life in the Polish shtetls (villages) in …”]
I had an epiphany about drinking recently. People pay more to drink in bars because what they are actually paying for is the company. I paid ten dollars for a shot of Patron, the very best Tequila, at Paddy Ryan’s ,and then I thought, well, maybe it would be cheaper to just buy it at the liquor store on the corner you know, and drink it at home. Well, I discovered that it was ten dollars for a whole bottle — a small bottle, but with maybe ten (1 ounce) shots in it. Wow! But, I discovered it was not fun to drink at home alone. I mentioned this to my mother, who suggested that I could buy the Tequila and take it to a Starbucks. Problem is nobody talks to strangers at a Starbucks. The whole point of a bar is having random, sometimes interesting, conversations with total strangers. But, they are building a Starbucks on the corner. Hmmm…
Some Random Obsservations
- I said to somebody from Italy that if you want directions in most places, ask a native but in New York it’s ask a tourist; they have all the maps and they go everywhere. True New Yorkers, while they may explore every inch of foreign places they go to as tourists, at home will typically have gone to landmarks only on the occasional school trip. They know where there job is, their favorite stores, restaurants and theaters or movie theaters or concert halls are, their friends, but that’s it. But they think they know. So, they will give wrong advice in good conscience. You have to ask ten people, really. Sort of like what Malcolm Gladwell said in “Blink” about needing 10,000 hours to master a craft. Though, I remember hearing the same thing in Aikido classes in the 80’s ,and in the 70s , Rocky’s manager in the movie of the same name tells him that he has to prepare for 45,000 hours for a 25 minute fight. It was easier back in the 80s, when tourists, many of them Japanese, had enormous cameras. Now, people use their smartphones which makes it harder.
- Another take on religion: I say I am a filial son; When I was growing up, my mother believed in reincarnation and my father believed in nothing. So, some days I believe in reincarnation and other days, I believe in nothing.
Wonderful Quote: “There are three things you can’t hide, Love, a cough, and poverty.” – Les Interpretes, episode 33, Chinese drama on Dramafever
- Iq and eq from Chinese Drama “Les Interpretes.”Love is the most beautiful and purest form of human nature.’ Oscar Wilde. .Asian dramas are truly like classical music in that they begin locally but are truly international in scope in the material they draw on and in their references. Episode 37.
42 Episodes 11274 Followers
ABOUT
She knows what she wants and is determined to go after it. Qiao Fei (Yang Mi) is a French postgraduate student who dreams of becoming a professional interpreter. Her mentor during her schooling in Paris is Cheng Jia Yang (Huang Xuan), the son of a foreign minister and a genius French interpreter. Qiao Fei and Jia Yang experience a rocky start but grow closer as Qiao Fei works doggedly to earn his respect. Their budding romance is complicated when Qiao Fei’s ex-boyfriend, Gao Jia Ming (Gao Wei Guang), happens to be Jia Yang’s adopted brother, and Jia Yang’s family thinks Wen Xiao Hua (Zhou Qi Qi) is much more suited for Jia Yang’s station in life. With the support of his friend, Wang Xu Dong (Zhang Yun Long), can Jia Yang stand up to his family and follow his heart? “The Interpreter” is a 2016 Chinese drama series directed by Wang Ying. It is based on the novel “Les Interprètes” by Miao Juan.
Original title
亲爱的翻译官
Romanized title
Qin Ai De Fan Yi Guan
Also known as
Dear Translator, Interprète Translation Officer, Translation Officer, Interprète, Les Interprètes,
Volunteer Team
The Lost in Translation Team
Broadcast Network
Hunan Satellite
Broadcast Period
05-24-2016 to 06-20-2016
Rating
PG-13
https://www.viki.com/tv/28160c-the-interpreter?locale=en
The Interpreter – 亲爱的翻译官 – Watch Full Episodes Free – China – TV Shows – Viki”
—
Random Observation: “What” in Chinese sounds like “Shema”
“Shema Yisrael – Aish.com
http://www.aish.com/jl/m/pb/48954656.html
Aish HaTorah
Jun 8, 2002 – Shema Yisrael – “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” – is perhaps the most famous of all Jewish sayings. The Shema is a …”
Article:
“How Isolation Is Bringing China and Israel Together
Analysis MAY 17, 2016 | 09:00 GMT Print Text Size
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) speaks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2013. (KIM KYUNG-HOON/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
A China-Israel free trade agreement (FTA) makes a lot of economic sense. China is one of the world’s leading manufacturing markets, while Israel is among the leaders in research and development (R&D). The Chinese want Israeli technology, and the Israelis want the cheaper consumer goods that the Chinese can make. The countries’ economic relationship has expanded, with bilateral trade climbing to nearly $11 billion in 2015 from $50 million in 1992, and an FTA would accelerate the process.
It is no surprise, then, that the two recently launched formal negotiations on such a deal. Fewer trade barriers would be good for both sides, but there are also political and supply chain concerns pushing them together.
Analysis
An FTA between China and Israel would enable Israel to import cheap consumer goods from China such as machinery and electronics, and China would be encouraged to purchase more of Israel’s high-end goods. Under an FTA, it is estimated that exports of Israeli goods to China would be 39 percent higher than in 2015, and China would be expected to export 24 percent more goods to Israel for a total trade increase of almost 30 percent. Israel would see the most immediate benefit because of the difference in scale between the countries’ economies. Israeli gross domestic product would increase by 0.13 percent from 2015 numbers, whereas it would increase the Chinese GDP by only 0.003 percent.
China is eager, though, to benefit from Israeli water technology. Northern China is facing mounting water scarcity over the next several decades because of chronic overuse, mismanagement and uneven geographic distribution. This could hinder Chinese agricultural output. As a world leader in water management technology, including recycling, irrigation and desalination technologies, Israel is well-equipped to help China mitigate the issue both by creating new sources of fresh water through desalination and by helping to make water use more efficient. This relationship has already begun, and in 2013 the Dowell Technological and Environmental Engineering Co. started constructing a Sino-Israeli Water Treatment Innovative Industrial Park within the city of Dongguan.
Far more important than the boost to trade would be the influence that closer economic relations would have on Chinese investment in Israel, particularly in R&D. Chinese venture capital investments in Israel, predominantly in the tech sector, are about $1.77 billion, which constitutes 40 percent of total venture capital investments in Israel in 2015. By comparison, Israeli national expenditure into R&D during the same year was just under $11 billion. This investment is enormously important for Israel, and there are several R&D investment programs to encourage it, including the 2010 China-Israel Cooperation Program for Industrial R&D as well as other geographically targeted R&D cooperation programs. In addition, in 2015 China invested some $500 million in local Israeli startups, and Chinese companies have bought several Israeli companies; this kind of investment will continue to grow.
Besides the economic benefits of an FTA, for Israel the deal is also about diversifying its political relationships. The West is becoming more politically distant from Israel, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for economic actions in what it says is a nonviolent struggle against Israeli occupation, is gaining prominence in Europe. Israel is looking to work more closely with other partners and move away from its reliance on the United States. The process is already underway: Last year, two Chinese companies won tenders to build a port in Ashdod and operate another port in Haifa.
A similar urge is motivating China. Looking out into the South China Sea, Beijing sees a U.S. effort to physically contain China’s expansion. To reach China’s ports, seaborne trade must pass through chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca — separating the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra — which are secured by the United States. One part of China’s counter to that effort has been to make itself indispensable to countries that could help exert political pressure on the United States. China is also worried about the extent to which Taiwan, South Korea and other U.S. allies in Asia dominate its supply chain for electronics and high-tech goods. Removing trade barriers and increasing its imports of Israeli high-tech products would gradually lessen those countries’ influence on China.”
https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/how-isolation-bringing-china-and-israel-together
hilariously:
“
Monday, 14 March 2016 | MYT 11:06 PM
Chinese government warns of Korean drama dangers as ‘Descendants Of The Sun’ hits 440 million views
The KBS2 drama ‘Descendants of the Sun’ hit 440 million views in China. – KBS
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SEOUL: The popularity of KBS2 drama series Descendants Of The Sun in China apparently has the nation’s government on edge.
On Saturday, China’s ministry of public security posted a warning against watching Descendants Of The Sun on its official Weibo site.
“An enormous fandom of Korean drama Descendants Of The Sun starring Song Joong-Ki has emerged as it began to air in Korea and China. It is easy to see that many have fallen in love with the male lead Song,” it said, warning that “watching Korean dramas could be dangerous, and even lead to legal troubles”.
Descendants Of The Sun, a 16-episode KBS2 TV drama series set against the backdrop of military operations in a fictional country and starring actor Song Joong-Ki and actress Song Hye-Kyo, hit 440 million cumulative views on Chinese online video platform iQiyi.
The cumulative views of the TV drama outnumbered those of 2014 SBS hit drama My Love From The Star, Taiwanese newspaper China Times reported on Sunday.
In its Weibo posting warning against the harmful effects of watching Korean dramas, the ministry offered examples of several extreme cases – a couple who divorced due to Korean dramas and a man who went through plastic surgeries to reclaim his wife’s heart, who was smitten by the male protagonist of a Korean drama – to illustrate the “potential troubles” faced by those watching Korean dramas.
Descendants Of The Sun, was released simultaneously in Korea and China, where iQiyi has purchased the online rights.
The TV drama series is also gaining popularity in Korea, recording 14.4 per cent of viewership with its first episode which aired on Feb 24 and hitting 28.5% for its sixth episode aired on March 10, according to AGB Nielsen, a television ratings company. – The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2016/03/14/chinese-government-warns-of-korean-drama-dangers/
Variety Editions:
AUGUST 4, 2016 | 05:38AM PT
China appears to have confirmed that it is to ban South Korean content from its TV screens in reprisal against the Korean government’s decision to deploy the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles.
State-owned China Central Television (CCTV) reported that SARFT, China’s broadcast regulator, had banned the airing of Korean TV shows with effect from Sept. 1. Some social media sources, however, said that the news report was a fake.
South Korea says THAAD can only be used defensively, and is necessary to deter or defend against attack from North Korea. On Wednesday North Korea fired a missile that landed in Japanese territorial waters.
China opposes THAAD deployment, which is scheduled to take place next year, as it says the missile system’s radar can be used to spy across borders and into China.
Variety has also been told that Chinese-Korean co-productions and talent are to be restricted as part of the reprisal measures. Several Korean companies said that their Chinese partner had been given verbal instructions from China’s Film Bureau that planned co-productions would not be approved.
China has become the biggest export market for South Korean TV content and music acts. Chinese producers and broadcasters have also been in exuberant competition to buy Korean intellectual property from comics to movies to remake or to co-produce. And several Chinese companies have acquired stakes in Korean outfits in order to have priority access to Korean content and talent.
The regulatory measures had an immediate impact on the shares of leading Korean talent agencies. YG Entertainment stock dropped nearly 9% on Tuesday to a 52-week low of KRW33,800. SM Entertainment also hit its year low of KRW27,650. Both have recovered slightly since then.
Despite the massive interest in Korea’s cool contemporary content, China’s state news agency Xinhua said that there is popular support for the anti-Korean measures. “A recent survey showed that more than four-fifths of Chinese people would support the ban on the appearance of South Korean entertainers in Chinese TV programs if the government does so. It reflects Chinese placing love for their home country before popularity of entertainment stars,” Xinhua reported Thursday.
SEE ALSO: Missiles May Shoot Down Korea-China Love Affair”
http://variety.com/2016/biz/asia/china-confirms-ban-on-korean-content-talent-1201830391/
[And why would the Chinese Government lie? Just like when reporters uncritically repeat whatever nonsense Hamas or the Palestinian Authority tells them. Et Tu, Variety?
But, let’s say they aren’t lying. What is the population of China in 2016:
Population of China (2016 and historical)
| Year | Population | Yearly % Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 1,382,323,332 | 0.46 % |
| 2015 | 1,376,048,943 | 0.52 % |
| 2010 | 1,340,968,737 | 0.54 % |
| 2005 | 1,305,600,630 | 0.55 % |
11 more rows, 10 more columns
China Population (2016) – Worldometers
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china–population/
]
and what is one fifth of that?:
ll276,464,666.4
And what is the population of the U.S. in 2016:
U.S. Population in 2016 According to Census Estimates: 322,762,018 …
http://www.usnews.com/…/2016…/us-population-in-2016-accor…
U.S. News & World Report
Jan 5, 2016 – The U.S. entered 2016 with an estimated population of 322,762,018 according to an end-of-year estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning that we added more than 2.4 million people to the population over the course of the year.
And what percentage is the number of Chinese citizens who side with Hallyu (that’s Korean Hollywood which includes Kdrama and Kpop) over their Government of the number of people in the U.S. , according to the the official Chinese Government News Agency?
0.85655886065
That’s just over 85%!
Hmmmm.
—
Question: Are politicians with R. by their names going to be more likely to be restrained by the Three Laws of Robotics?
- “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”
http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/robotics.html
Auburn University
—-
If Mayor Bloomberg had succeeded in getting those awful sugary drinks out of the movie theaters, it might have provided a big shot in the arm for New York’s economy what with importance of the production and consumption of movies to the economy, the plethora of boring movies and the growing legalization of pot nationwide. If Pot Brownies had replaced those awful sugary drinks, bad movies would have become hilarious as every night would be Mystery Science Theater Night and people would go out to giggle — on foot, we should hope.
Doing violins to the language
Whenever I used to see my father, he would ask, “who’s your favorite violinist these days?” Since Arthur Grumiaux is one of my favorites, if he asked me that today, having learned that “of course” is “Crumiaux, in Korean,” I would just shrug and say, “Why Grumiaux, of course.”
The version Grumiaux performs, which is the most used historically, I believe, though the hardest to get in print (fortunately imslp has it) is by the great Hungarian violinist, “Jeno Hubay (short umlaut over the o) — famous for his heavy vibrato.
Grumiaux takes certain chordal passages and makes it more exiting by breaking them up into double-stopped sixteenths. [Chestnut Viola Joke – not mine: Two violinists are walking past two violists arguing, “yes, it is,” “no, it is not,” and so on. One of the violinists asks the other, what the dispute is about. “Oh, they are arguing about whether it is possible to play 128th notes.” “It is so,” continued the first violist. “Oh, yeah? Play one!”]
As it happens, “Keuszenem” means, “Thank You” in Hungarian, “Keuszenim” means “Professor” in Korean [“sz” is pronounced like “s” in English in Hungarian, the Korean is my transliteration since Korean is written in Hangul not Roman Characters], and “im” at the end of a word in Hebrew makes it “plural” as in “goyim” which literally means, “the nations”:
So, the upshot is the punch line; And the punch line is: Keuszenem Keuszenim.
Enjoy!:
The Summer of My Discontent
Every summer, New Yorkers, fly south in droves.
Just got a robocall from the power company that there might be a power outage in my area because the temperature is expected to exceed 100 for several days, so I should arrange a safe place to stay. Seriously.
In the summer, if you like hot weather you should live in NY, which is except for certain parts, an old crumbling city where the fuse blows or there is a blackout if too many people use air conditioning. If you like cold weather, go to Florida or Texas, where people go from air conditioned environment to air-conditioned environment.
But, New York has warm winters for the most part. So why leave?
Thanks For the Memories or Let’s Put It All in the Pasta
The story of Koreans in America is really a Horatio Alger1 Success Story. Koreans have played such an enormous role in American history. For example, the General who led the armies of the South during the Civil War, Robert E. Lee. Everywhere I go, I see signs that say, “Park Here.” We have had not one but two New York State Governors, father and son, Mario and Andrew Kumao2, intensely proud of their Korean-American heritage. Now, if the Kumaos, were to continue the trend, like the Kennedys creating a dynasty, getting elected to office after office, and if, like the Kennedy’s, one or more, emboldened by success were to become cocky and fall from grace, might not their enemies say, they got their kumuptance.3
1 Horatio Alger wrote popular boys books in the nineteenth century in which the poor city boy goes West, saves the day, makes his fortune and gets the girl. The genre became so popular, it became with synonymous with the “rags to riches story”, a popular K-drama theme, incidentally.
2 Sounds like Kumao or, alternatively, kumowaya. Kumao, Kumowaya or Komupta or variations of thanks more on this anon. So many names from Asian languages are mis-transliterated due to the silly influence of the Pin Yang system, a system come up with by academics, that assigns to new pronunications to English letters rather than using the existing ones that match. I mean, isn’t the whole point of a phonetic rather than idiographic system that you know how to pronounce it from the way it is written — that plus only having 26 letters at most rather than thousands of characters but — Lee is really pronounced, “EE.” I can imagine an orchestra rehearsal, in which the conductor tells the players to play from the letter, “L” as in “E.” I played with a Chinese cellist whose name was “Hsuan, which is actually unpronouneable in English or would be pronounced “HaSooahn”.” It was actually prounounced, “Schwannn” like the old and now defunct Schwann guide to recordings, or in English, Shwann would work. “Park” is really “Bok”, like the great Korean composer, Johann Sebastien Bok, and the great Korean Homeopathic physician, Dr. Edward Bok. The Cuomos, father and then son Governors of NY State are/were (Mario is dead) intensely proud of their Italian-American heritage. Koreans call Korea, the “Italy of the East.” No doubt, because of their passion and their embrace of so many “Western” really Italian, in origin, things, like classical music, art, food, and fashion, and Oh, Boy, Coffee.
Koreans love pasta – as the whole world loves Ramen; in Japan, in particular, they have whole dramas devoted to love of Ramen, we had “Ramen Girl” starring Brittany Murphy — but Dukbokki, which is billed as spicy fried rice cakes, looks like Ziti or something, you know the hollow cylindrical pasta, but it’s made from rice and it’s not hollow, and it has a red sauce, but not tomato, incidentally.
The first image is Dukbokki, the second is Pasta Puttanesca.
If you see a fancy coffee place you can bet it’s Korean. Spoiler alert: At the end of “City Hunter,” a terrific Kdrama, the President’ s daughter announces that she wants to be a barrista (a person who makes elegant coffee with hearts in cream on top and stuff) instead of going to college. Silly, of course, now you can probably major in that in college – I remember a Greek Anarchist I knew in the ’80s who was majoring in scuba-diving at Queens College. Before the turn of the millenium, there was just coffee, tea and decaf. I remember going to a pizza shop in Philadelphia in the ’80s and ordering a slice with anchovies. [Back in my Lefty days, I had attended a solidarity event at “Move” for Mumia, and they were serving unlimited, free, organic, healthy, vegan food so, of course, we were left with no choice but to go for pizza.] The surly white guy behind the counter snarled at me, “You from New York, aren’t you? Thank God, it was before 9/11 or he might have called Homeland Security on me.] I only learned about the “Americano” from watching Korean dramas. People are always ordering one though I had never heard of it before. Apparently, it derives it’s origin from American GIs in Italy at the end of WWII who wanted their espresso watered down. It’s a big watered-down espresso. Nothing less American. All the Americans I know like their coffees weak, light and sweet. You know, like hot chocolate, with whipped cream — hmm…how come nobody thought of adding marshmellows to coffee?
Marshmallow Lyrics no video: https://youtu.be/2XKktjvFn-Y
Marshmallow video no lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce-_t-f-uz0
3 Kumao and Kumupta are variations on “thanks” which one would only say to someone familiar and younger. “Kom Sohmida” is the formal equivalent of “Thank You” and is the expression one would generally use. Korean has seven levels of formality, So don’t try this at home kids. In a terrific book by a Korean-American writer who came to the U.S. as a baby and then went back when she was 13, the author says that walking into a room full of people and quickly having to decide how to address whom reminded her of one of those Westerns where somebody had to quickly determine where the gunmen were and aim and shoot.
The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture by
Here Come ‘de Judge
So, the latest Trump brew haha concerns his publicly voicing his suspicions that a Mexican-American judge and member of a Mexican-American Legal Fraternal Society would be biased against him for wanting to build a wall with Mexico. Gee, can’t imagine why. But, there is a much more important reason to be concerned with the State of Judicial affairs in the United States. I was just watching a Glenn Ford Noir from the 40’s and it occurred to me that we don’t have any judges with white hair.
So, I see Trump has now changed his mind about Libya. Before, he pointed out that Obama and Clinton brought down Quadafy after he began cooperating with us — frightened as he was by our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran also suspended it’s Nuke program then for the same reason, as now they are laughing at us in the wake of revelations that the White House lied and then clumsily tried to cover it up — now, Trump is saying we should have taken him out with a surgical strike? The whole point was that the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Quaida, etc. were waiting in the wings, as with Egypt, Mubarak replacing Morsi and idiot neo-cons like McCain then siding with Obama and Clinton in opposing Sisi who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood and really is a moderate Muslim. While, I don’t regard Trump as racist, (frankly, Biden’s jokes on the campaign trail have been a lot more “racist” but he gets a pass, of course, one expects crudeness from construction workers (or bosses) but what’s Biden’s excuse)
disparities between image and reality and the constant injection of “race” into the discourse plus the constant flip flops remind me of the speech that the pastor of a famous Black Church gave in 1828? upon the final demise of slavery in NY (which was abolished on a gradualist basis during the Revolution) in which he obliquely refers to Thomas Jefferson, without naming him, as that “ambidexter philosopher.” He was an open racist with an egalitarian image who only freed his relatives after he died as opposed to Hamilton and Washington…
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https://itshamiltime.com/2012/12/03/hamiltons-views-on-race-and-salvery-an-introduction/
“Despite having been an active slave holder for 56 years, George Washington struggled with the institution of slavery and spoke frequently of his desire to end the practice. At the end of this life Washington made the bold step to free his slaves in his 1799 will – the only slave-holding Founding Father to do so.”
http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/
[see quoted blog below:]
“It’s Hamiltime!
“Paul Finkelman recently wrote a fascinating piece in the New York Times focusing on Thomas Jefferson’s views on race. Finkelman states:
Jefferson was always deeply committed to slavery, and even more deeply hostile to the welfare of blacks, slave or free. His proslavery views were shaped not only by money and status but also by his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience.
There is, it is true, a compelling paradox about Jefferson: when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, announcing the “self-evident” truth that all men are “created equal,” he owned some 175 slaves. Too often, scholars and readers use those facts as a crutch, to write off Jefferson’s inconvenient views as products of the time and the complexities of the human condition.
But while many of his contemporaries, including George Washington, freed their slaves during and after the revolution — inspired, perhaps, by the words of the Declaration — Jefferson did not. Over the subsequent 50 years, a period of extraordinary public service, Jefferson remained the master of Monticello, and a buyer and seller of human beings.
Rather than encouraging his countrymen to liberate their slaves, he opposed both private manumission and public emancipation. Even at his death, Jefferson failed to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric: his will emancipated only five slaves, all relatives of his mistress Sally Hemings, and condemned nearly 200 others to the auction block. Even Hemings remained a slave, though her children by Jefferson went free.
Nor was Jefferson a particularly kind master. He sometimes punished slaves by selling them away from their families and friends, a retaliation that was incomprehensibly cruel even at the time. A proponent of humane criminal codes for whites, he advocated harsh, almost barbaric, punishments for slaves and free blacks. Known for expansive views of citizenship, he proposed legislation to make emancipated blacks “outlaws” in America, the land of their birth. Opposed to the idea of royal or noble blood, he proposed expelling from Virginia the children of white women and black men.
“‘ was discussing the issue this weekend with Rand Scholet at the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, and it is truly remarkable how progressive Hamilton’s views on race were compared to many of his contemporaries. Hamilton grew up in the West Indies and was surrounded by slavery: slaves accounted for almost 90% of the total population. He participated in the slave trade on an administrative basis as a young clerk, and developed a disgust towards the entire institution. When Hamilton was involved with the Revolution, he advocated allowing blacks to join the Continental Army, despite opposition from many of his contemporaries. Hamilton’s philosophies on race were comparatively extremely progressive. I plan to write a series of blog posts highlighting Hamilton’s stance on slavery and other racial issues including the incorporation of black soldiers into the Continental Army, the New York Manumission Society, and the rebellion in Haiti. For more background on this issue, see James Oliver Horton’s Alexander Hamilton: Slavery and Race in a Revolutionary Generation.
“When Hamilton was involved with the Revolution, he advocated allowing blacks to join the Continental Army, despite opposition from many of his contemporaries. Hamilton’s philosophies on race were comparatively extremely progressive.”
https://itshamiltime.com/2012/12/03/hamiltons-views-on-race-and-salvery-an-introduction/
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…who quietly opposed or mitigated slavery in substantive ways but were regarded as just wealthy oligarchs, image-wise.
But, it is funny how the Left changed it’s tune. Does anybody remember the Saturday Night Live bit from the early 80s making fun of Reagan’s conflict with Quadafy. “We bring gifts (but not from LIbya.”) I believe it was a Bill Murray episode. Yes, here it is: Season 7, Episode 8
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/81/81hunlikely.phtml
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[ open on title card ]Announcer: “Tales of the Unlikely”. Tonight’s episode: (Chapter Seven:) “The Libyan Menace”. In our last episode, the mighty Libyan fleet, lying in wait on our eastern coast, was scattered by freak winds and sent in humiliation back to Tripoli. The insane Colonel Kadaffi, vowing revenge, swore a mighty oath on “ABC News: Nightline” to take the living hearts of President Reagan, the joint chiefs of staff and Henry Hyde (Republican-Illinois) and feed them to the jackals. Meanwhile, at the White House, new intrigue brews.[ dissolve to image of the White House ][ dissolve to lobby ]Tour Guide: Follow me, ladies and gentlemen… [ tour group follows her ] This is the White House lobby. I think you’ll agree that it CERTAINLY beats anything they have in, say, Libya! This is the Taft Table, and it’s named for our HEAVIEST president.
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pinchinat 