EtherHouse is now at www.etherhouse.com!
I'm back --
And I've transferred the entire site to
www.etherhouse.com.
Update your bookmarks, and I'll see you there!
Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!
Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.
This week's proverb applies nicely to the ongoing Movable Type transfer kvetching I've been doing here.
Ain mol a saichel, dos tsvaiteh mol chain, dem dritten mol git men in di tsain.
The first time it's smart; the second time it's cute; the third time you get a sock in the teeth.
That, my friends, is what I call wisdom.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!
Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.
So. The bad news is that it's taken longer than I'd like to resume regular blogging. The good news (for me, anyway) is that I've got a new Mac G5, and I'm putting my old laptop on AirPort so I can blog like a slob, draped over whatever piece of furniture looks comfortable. (Or in the bathroom, as most bloggers do!) Of course, all this upgrading involves downtime. Meanwhile, I'm almost up and running on Movable Type, though it's taken me longer to convert to Movable Type than it took Gutenberg.
In any case, I can't let Sunday go by without a proverb. So here's this week's:
Az me muz, ken men.
When one must, one can.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!
Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.
As I mentioned, posting's going to be light until I get onto Movable Type and park myself at www.etherhouse.com. (The address works now -- update your bookmarks! -- but it forwards to TypePad.)
So I'll post an appropriate one this week:
Der vos shveigt maint oich epes.
He who is silent means something just the same.
Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!
Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.
This one goes out by special request to my bud Karol at Alarming News.
Besser tsu shtarben shtai'endik aider tsu leben oif di k'ni.
Better to die upright than to live on your knees.
This one's got everything: a noble, stirring sentiment, and a fun English cognate in "k'ni" (knee).
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
EtherHouse undergoing renovations
It's a shame to post this sporadically when you're trying to get a blog off the ground. But I'm still trying to drag EtherHouse, bit by binary bit, from TypePad to Movable Type. Had to switch hosts, ending up where I probably should have started, at Hosting Matters. Now we'll see if we can whip the thing into shape and go live with my real URL: EtherHouse.com.
I must admit that I've also been enjoying a little decompression from the news and blogs in general for the last week or so. It's the first time since Sept. 2001 that I've actually felt able to relax my vigilance. Don't ask me what good it ever did anyway, staring with bloodshot eyes at talking heads on the TV while tense music blared the latest alert, or reading political blogs until my wrist was numb from mousing. Apparently some part of my lizard brain thought it was very important that I follow all the polls, as if victory depended solely on my unwavering attention.
In a way, Nov 3 was as big a turning point in my life as Sept 11 was. It silenced so much unbearable din. Bush's victory, apart from anything else it achieved, had a major effect on my personal life; it muted a lot of the constant rage and hostility that had been emanating from so many of my friends and colleagues for so long. Bear in mind that I'm a deeply closeted Bush supporter, so the rage and hostility weren't directed at me personally. They just permeated the atmosphere like new elements. Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, rage, and hostility.
Shortly before the election, the EtherHub and I very cautiously bought a bottle of champagne. There was quite a lot of voodoo around the whole purchase. "Well, there's every chance we won't use this." "Oh, that's for sure. We could always use it on New Year's." "That's really what it's for, now that I think of it. New Year's. Or some wedding in the future. If it happens to get used on Election Night, well, that's a nice bonus..." We were so careful not to jinx anything.
We spent election night in a hotel room in Philly. The champagne was cooling in an ice bucket. When Fox called Ohio for Bush, neither of us reached for the champagne. "It's just one network," I said calmly.
When NBC called Ohio, we popped the cork and filled the flutes I'd bought just for the occasion. I had tested all the glasses in the store until I found the ones that made the most pleasing "ding!" when clinked together. And we ding!ed ourselves silly in the early morning hours of Nov. 3. Again and again. Every time we heard something we liked: whooping, laughter, ding!, and a sip of champagne. Daschle got several goodbye ding!s too. There was so much good news we could have ding!ed our way through two bottles.
And now it turns out we could've bought a case. There's been so much good news lately that I hardly know what to make of it. It's taken a while to learn how to push aside the "so when's the brutal payback coming?" anxieties, but I figured out how to deal with it.
I feel like a new woman. And for this one brief shining moment, I'm really enjoying not having a passionate opinion on 50 things a day. So bear with me; I'm sure this phase won't last, and I'll be refreshed and extra-feisty when I'm ready to come out swingin'.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Weird Kinky Sex
Well, the good news is I found out by looking through my referrals that my site is currently 26th of approximately 257,000 that appear when you Google for weird kinky sex. (How did that happen? It's like... it's like Google is reading my mind! I knew it! -- I never should have taken off my tinfoil beanie. Damn thing just got too sweaty...)
The bad news is that Michael Moore's site is 24th on the list. Could some anti-porn activists be hacking Google, inserting dreadful buzzkills to deter porn-seekers? 'Cause that's gotta feel like a bucket of ice water in your lap when you're searching for weird kinky sex.
Unless you're a lot kinkier than I care to imagine.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Flyboy Confidential
I'm not a pilot and never aspired to be one. Still, I'm fascinated by the message boards of PPRuNe, the Professional Pilots Rumour Network. It's a voyeuristic thrill to eavesdrop on what these macho dudes talk about when the self-loading freight (as they call passengers) aren't around. PPRuNe is the first place I check when anything avaition-related is in the news; often the posters have an inside line, or more knowledgeable theories than you'd read anywhere else. (And they frequently ream the MSM for inaccuracy in aviation reporting.)
Poking around, you'll find discussion topics from wind shear to queries about which Singapore bars have the most pilot groupies. There are some intriguing political threads too. A couple years ago, for example, there was a drawn-out row on the board over whether pilots on commercial flights should be armed. The American pilots, most of whom are ex-military, were generally in favor of arming pilots. The British and European pilots tended to be violently against it, though it seemed to me their stance was based more on a visceral revulsion to handguns than on practical considerations. Of course, this topic had been discussed in the MSM, but who cares what reporters and pundits think? It's much more interesting to hear from the pilots themselves.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Fundie Fun: Create your own church sign!
I know posting's been light; I'm currently walking the Trail of Tears that is a TypePad-->Movable Type migration.
But here's something to make it up to you.
A church sign generator. You can create a church sign, and even order it as a magnet. I trust you all not to write anything blasphemous. I'm sure you wouldn't even be tempted. You seem like a trustworthy lot.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!
Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.
Az meshiach vet kumen, vellen alleh krankeh oisgehailt verren;
nor a nar vet bleiben a nar.When the Messiah comes, all the sick will be healed;
only a fool will stay a fool.
I guess there's one thing even God can't do.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Is death smart? I say yes.
Uncommon Knowledge about Death
Is it used by the police? I say Probably.
Does it have a hole in it? I say Probably.
Is it a predator? I say Probably.
Is it used for entertainment? I say Probably.
Does it have a backbone? I say Probably.
Does it have a face? I say Probably.
Does it use numbers? I say Probably.
Does it dig holes? I say Probably.
Is it found in salad bars? I say Probably.
Is it smart? I say Yes.
Is it originally from Africa? I say Probably.
Does it have arms? I say Probably.
Can it speak? I say Probably.
Is it ferocious? I say Probably.
Is it delivered? I say Probably.
Does it cut? I say Yes.
Words of wisdom from 20Q,net, a site that allows you to play 20 Questions with a robot. The interesting thing is: The robot learns from each game. It's an ongoing artificial intelligence experiment. I've played the game many times and tried to catch the robot learning, but the questions seem to rotate as part of the game, so it's hard to detect a change.
The robot is very talented at guessing objects, but has trouble with abstract concepts. The noun I was trying to get the robot to guess above was "suicide." It did manage to guess that my concept had something to do with death, so gold star for robot boy. After I admitted "defeat," it bragged about some of its other knowledge about death, spewing out the list shown above.
Sigh. Robots apparently have little need to understand death. (Although I will admit that death is used by the police, is used for entertainment by some, alas, and is found in salad bars. Especially in certain Korean delis around the midtown Manhattan area where they leave the lunch food in the hot/cold trays until dinnertime, by which time the whole buffet has become a deadly hot 'n' cold Petri dish of romping pathogens.)
Try a game yourself here.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
I, the prudent EtherPundit: Anagrams, Part II
"I, the prudent" is an anagram for EtherPundit. I've already written about my love for anagrams. I can't help myself: I had to delve for some more, this time for EtherPundit.
Anagrams for EtherPundit:
Pud tinter, eh? As a matter of fact, the color is all natural! But thanks for noticing.
Hit DU, repent. Because it's not nice to torment retards.
Dr. Petite Hun. She's cute as a button, but watch out for that prostate exam.
Hindu petter. Those Bollywood films get me all randy...
I tuned Perth. An unusually good night for DX. I suspect tropospheric ducting.
Hup! Rid Tenet! Hey ho, hey ho! George Ten-et has got to ... he's gone, you say? Huh. Just as well.
Deep thin rut. Every blogger's worst nightmare, and inevitable fate.
Hide pet runt. If maw finds out you didn't drown that thing, there'll be hell to pay.
I.D. the punter! Blimey, guv! I prefer to remain anonymous!
Nu, Dr. Epithet? So now you're a doctor, suddenly it's okay to talk this way to your own mother? Such a foul mouth!
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
"Free Bird"? But my dear Lynyrd Skynyrd, that makes no sense!
As the EtherHubby and I were in the car listening to our local "classic rock" station, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" came on, as it always will if you listen to a classic rock station for more than 45 minutes. "Did you ever notice," EtherHub mused, "that birds usually mate for life? So this guy's justification for leaving his girl, because he's as 'free as a bird now,' doesn't make any sense."
"It's just part of the gotta-be-movin'-on,-babe axis of 70s rock, like 'Ramble On' by Led Zep, or 'Ramblin' Man' by the Allman Brothers," I said. "I gather that at one time shacking up with a woman and then dumping her was considered the essence of machismo."
"But the guy in this song sounds like a real freeloader. Birds are really industrious. I think he should stop comparing himself to a bird and call the song 'Free Bum,' because that's obviously what he is."
"I like it. Then he can sing, 'Cause I'm as free as a bum now! Can you spare a little chaaaaange?'"
At last, a reason not to turn off this wretched song: Singalong time!
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Oops -- I spilled body wash on the SCSI port!
Patterico snarks amusingly at Brian Williams for saying bloggers "are on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem." Well, look, Brian -- you big-time media muckety-mucks talk about about having a story "in the can," why can't we? Come on -- 'in' the can, 'on' the can, what's the difference?
Don't knock bathroom-blogging. I personally think of all of my best posts in the shower. 'Course it plays hell on the keyboard, and the noise of the modem is ear-splitting when it echoes on the tiles, but that's how we bloggers do things. You know: In the bathroom. With a modem. A 1200 baud modem, as a matter of fact. 'Cause we're all unemployed and we spent our last grudging largesse from mom on pajamas, and anyway 1200 baud is fast enough when you're enjoying a nice hot shower. With the keyboard clutched in one hand. And a soapy loofah in the other.
Oh, and a note to the author of the article: Don't you dare call me a "self-styled journalist." It's "soi-disant journalist" to you, pal.
Update: Hindrocket at PowerLine relates an odd encounter with Williams and asks:
What's next, nude blogging from our hot tubs?
Two predictions: First, I will get a pathetically large number of Google hits just for repeating the strings "nude blogging" and "hot tubs."
Second, it won't be long before some enterprising soul combines the nude webcam concept with the blogging concept, and starts blogging in real time on a webcam while nude in a hot tub.
Please, don't let it be Oliver Willis.
Update: INDC Journal has a photo of Brian Williams' vision.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Fake bands, from the Banana Splits to the Way-Outs
Someone with apparently limitless time and patience has chronicled just about every fake band known to man. The focus is on TV and movies, but the Miscellaneous section includes fake bands from novels. They even include fake bands mentioned by real songs, like "Benny and the Jets" and "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars."
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Thank you, anonymous Google-searching person
Most of my hits from searches seem to come from the Bangbus post of a week or so ago. It's probably too much to hope that any of the Bangbus searchers stick around to read any of this blog's other content.
But my favorite search to date is this beauty:
Michael + Moore + Loser + And + Liar
Anonymous Google searcher, whoever you are, I hope you found what you were looking for here.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
O'Reilly aims for new shark-jumping record
Wizbang rightly rags on O'Reilly for defending Dan Rather. Kevin suggests O'Reilly is afraid to throw stones because of his own sex-scandal glass house. I don't think so; I seem to recall he was already defending Rather before his own situation blew up in his face. And I don't see the situations as analogous at all. O'Reilly's scandal was based on a personal peccadillo, and a fairly tame one at that, even if you believe his accuser was an innocent victim (which I don't). Rather brazenly used fraudulent evidence to peddle lies about a sitting President, with the aim of taking down his presidency. And he continues to stonewall unrepentantly. If he had a single atom of self-respect, he would have fallen on his sword in September, crying out a mea culpa to the President and the entire country.
I've always been a desultory watcher of O'Reilly, if I watched at all. But he's developed a kind of weirdness-charisma for me. It's as if there's some kind of slow, interminable trainwreck going on in the man's mind. He's started to behave so strangely — recommending Bill Clinton for Secretary of State? — and yet, I believe he thinks there's some method to his madness. He seems to be angling for something; what is it? After helping to pioneer one of the most influential arms of "new media," why regress to aligning himself with extinction-bound dinosaurs like CBS and Rather? Who knows? Maybe now that he's clawed his way to the top, he doesn't know where to go from here. At this rate, he's going to claw himself to the bottom again.
This new "I'll say one loony-left thing, and one rabble-rousing right-wing thing, and this way both sides will love me" schtick seems transparent and ultimately self-destructive to me. And it's not the first self-destructive bender O'Reilly's been on lately, as we know. But then they say each man hurts the one he loves most.
Oh, you handsome devil in the mirror there —
I know I can't trust you, but I just can't stop loving you!
Update: Ace agrees with Wizbang that O'Reilly defends the indefensible because he's got some indefensible baggage of his own:
I would suggest that he began this campaign against "smear merchants" in order to insulate himself against his own coming scandal, one he knew about but which his audience did not.
I don't know; I suppose it's plausible, but I seem to recall that things went from hunky-dory to legal death struggle very quickly with his producer. I don't think the situation was brewing long enough for him to have concocted a left turn as self-defense.
My suspicion is that, along with whatever grand scheme he has in mind, there are a few specific reasons he started attacking the "smear merchants," especially during the campaign. First, I suspect he was hedging his bets in case Kerry won. Second, he appears to have believed, delusionally, that he had a shot at interviewing Kerry. (Though that may have been a publicity stunt so he could claim Kerry feared his tough, take-no-prisoners style. Predictably, after the election, he claimed one of the reasons Kerry lost was because he'd refused to appear on the Factor.)
Third — and I'm just guessing here — he had a special reason to attack the Swift Boat Vets and defend Kerry. Vietnam has got to be a sore spot for any male of a certain age who didn't serve. Especially for a very high-profile hawk like O'Reilly. Anything short of "how dare these liars attack a Vietnam hero" would have opened him up to accusations of draft-dodging. That's no excuse; I can't admire someone for tailoring their commentary so it best covers their own ass, as if news has value only in how much it can aggrandize or undermine them personally. But I believe that was the rationale behind O'Reilly's attacks on the Swifties.
Now he can claim that he doesn't have to discuss his scandal, because he won't give the "smear merchants" time on his show, and that's a principled position he's strongly believed in for, oh, three or four months or so.
No need to make this claim; the terms of his legal settlement with his ex-producer appear to forbid either one from ever speaking publicly of the matter. That's a pretty airtight excuse for avoiding the topic.
O'Reilly occasionally he does ask tough questions of those who need asking, and he's pretty good about animating America about important issues. I don't get his "Guards on the border" fetish, but I'm thankful for his promotion of the boycott-France movement.
I do agree with Ace on this. The big O certainly isn't all bad, and I don't wish any ill on him. What I wish, in fact, is that he'd snap the hell out of whatever bizarro midlife crisis he's going through, and rejoin the rest of us on planet Earth, where he can do some good.
Update: Democracy Project has proposed a new name for incidents like O'Reilly's defense of Rather.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
New Feature! Yiddish Proverb Sundays! Read, so you should learn!
You asked for it!* Regular readers** wanted to see some weekly features†, and I'm only too happy to oblige. So today I inaugurate...
Yiddish Proverb Sundays!
Unless noted, all proverbs will be from the 1970 book "1001 Yiddish Proverbs," by Fred Kogos.
I'll start the series with the last proverb in the book:
Altsding lozst zich ois mit a gevain.
Everything ends in weeping.
That's got to be the ur-proverb, right there. Could be pulled straight from Ecclesiastes, and for all I know it is. There it is, distilled into a few words, hard and sharp as diamonds: Ladies and gentlemen, the human condition.
This might be a good time to note that I don't speak Yiddish. Several people have called me an honorary Jew, though. Perhaps that's why these proverbs speak to me; I mean, the human condition is the human condition, but some cultures face it a little more squarely than others. And with a little more humor, might I add.
(Language nerd stuff coming up. Avert your eyes if you are sensitive to dorkiness or products processed in a dorkiness-processing facility.)
I'm going to include the Yiddish version whenever I can, because the originals often have lilting cadences and rhymes that don't carry over into the translation. (I imagine anyone with even a slight familiarity with the sound of spoken Yiddish or German could easily "hear" what the Yiddish might sound like.) Plus, I like spotting English cognates. In this example, there's Altsding ("all things") and gevain (sounds like "whine," certainly shares a root). And I'm guessing lozst shares DNA with "lost."
(Okay, the dorkiness-sensitive can resume reading now. If you are a dorkiness-sensitive patron and you got any of the above paragraph in your eyes, please proceed immediately to the nearest eye-wash station, where your eyeballs will be flushed with issues of Maxim and Sports Illustrated until all traces of dorkiness have been expunged. Thank you.)
* No you didn't.
** Of which I had, at last count, between 0 and 23, depending on whether you count the voices in my head.
† If the voices in my head do count as regular readers, and I don't know why they shouldn't, then this statement is true.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
Barnes and Noble cooking the books?
Power Line, of course, beats me to the punch on this news flash: Wow, bookstores sure are different since the election!
I had the exact same experience described in the above link; the difference in Brooklyn was startling and radical. For years, literally years, the encroachment of anti-Bush books had been progressing. Eventually, I stopped going to bookstores altogether. I used to love browsing the neighborhood Barnes & Noble, but I had to give it up; it started to feel like crawling through no-man's land, blasted from all sides. Instead, I gave a couple thousand dollars' worth of business to Amazon.
It's hard to describe the hostile, oppressive feeling of entering a bookstore where all the stacks, displays, and promotions blare at you: Bush lied! — America sucks! — 'Terrorist' attack? We deserved it! — You're a bigot unless you believe as we do! — The election was stolen! — Where are the wings? — Bush won't rest until everyone is dead and the earth is a barren wasteland!, etc. But try finding, say, a Hugh Hewitt book, and you'll need spelunking equipment and a headlamp to chip through the layers of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and "Dude, Where's My Country?"
All along, I've had a lot of questions about this phenomenon.
- Are these displays dictated from headquarters or are they left to the discretion of the local managers?
- Is the political weighting of the displays dictated by local factors — say, local voting patterns? (That's the charitable interpretation.) Or is it dictated by someone's political leanings, either at the local or national level?
The easy way to get an honest answer to this question would be to see what's on display in red cities in red states. I'd like to believe that the jamming of liberal books down customers' throats is purely a matter of demographics; after all, you wouldn't have a huge display of Yankees books in Boston, would you?
But I have that little muttering, paranoid voice in my head that tells me there may be more than strictly commercial considerations here. Anyone out there know the real score?
Anyway, it's all different now. The anti-Bush books have vanished, and not a trace of the looming displays remains. I can shop in a real-live bookstore again without feeling I'm on enemy turf. And I can walk back home swinging my bag of new books jauntily to the melodious sound of the forlorn flapping of "We The People SAY NO To The Bush Agenda" rainbow banners against the facades of million-dollar houses.
What you mean "we," kemo sabe?
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
EtherHouse: Seethe Hour
"Seethe Hour" is but one of many anagrams for "EtherHouse."
I've always been fascinated by word games, and anagrams are one of my favorites. A really suitable anagram is more than just wordplay -- it seems to reveal hidden truths about its subject.
Like "I, Rearrangement Servant" -- an anagram for Internet Anagram Server, a site I love to waste time at. There are other anagram sites, but this remains my favorite because of its simplicity, speed and power. I do find that the human touch is required to polish the suggestions of the program, but it does most of the hard work for you.
More EtherHouse anagrams:
Treehouse "H". Any Simpsons fan will recognize this nickname for the "Treehouse of Horror" series.
There, sue OH. We all know Bush stole the state with the help of his minions at Diebold. Let the writs fly!
He tore US, eh? Our Canadian neighbors express their typically meddlesome opinion about the starkly divided electoral map.
Hetero hues. Hey, I can't help the sexual orientation I was born with! Lighten up, anti-breeder bigots!
Sheer Tue OH. Yes, Ohio was a tight race indeed on Tue Nov 3. I believe they didn't call it, in fact, until early Wed morning.
Hush Roe tee. I'm as pro-choice as the next person, but really: these kinds of garments do more harm than good.
| Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com. |
