“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
– Oliver Hardy, from the movie Sons of the Desert, 1933.
At least one member of this famous partnership had trouble with his fingers. (image: filmcriticsguild.blogspot.com – click)
Memorable quotes
Speak up to save a life. (It may be your own.)
Here’s the link to the It Can Wait documentary
Fighting fire with fire. It may not always be effective, but one can understand the urge.
Auckland Law Revue parody of Blurred Lines.
Entertaining and edgy. Good work.
– P
via @CaitinMoran
Update: according the the NZ Herald, the three women are: Adelaide Dunn, Olivia Lubbock and Zoe Ellwood. Excellent. (Note the beefcake doesn’t get a credit.)
Honourable
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar … The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it …
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral …
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
— Mark Antony
from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 2,
Groping for the truth
Why does a lie offend us?
image: nakedblogging.com (click)
Why is it that a lie — especially a lie to our face — vexes us so?
Our efforts to identify the veracity of a claim (sometimes a very basic claim), can be frustrated by liars and rogues. So much of our lives can be taken up with efforts to locate or verify the truth about something or someone.
And lies are told every day — about big issues and small. The expression, ‘seeking the truth’ has a real ring to it … but it ain’t easy.
Over the years, dealing with some professional con-artists and liars, in politics and in business, I have come to see there is no single tell-tale factor that will readily help you identify the liar. Except perhaps one (and even that is not totally reliable):
How they treat other people — particularly those who they perceive as of lower ‘status’ to them.
Arrogance is a HUGE indicator.
A bully is almost always a liar. (But not every liar is a bully! Far from it.)
In my observation, there often seems to be a sort of cognitive link (is that the right expression?) between excessive ego — however it’s expressed — and a lack of truthfulness.
The thought: ‘Those rules don’t apply to me’ has led many a narcissist or sociopath into deception.
Just a theory.
Any other ideas?
Re-posted from August 2009
Dealing with one’s disillusionment with an elderly man
Rolf Harris is innocent until proven guilty, of course. But it struck me as sad that prosecutors have said (as quoted):
“We have determined there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is in the public interest.”
Quite unrelated to Rolf Harris, I know the sharp pang of disillusionment one feels when an elderly gentleman whom one had perceived a certain way — i.e. basically honourable — reveals himself differently through his actions.
– P
Making up words to keep the patrons entertained?
Saw this visiting family in Wellington.
I guess the locals are used to it, but I spluttered.
– P
Heartwarming
Watch this video of a concert where the star invites a member of the audience to participate in a duet … and she turns out to be fantastic! The combination of the song’s message and the way the performance works out moved me…
“Still me” (1’38”) is such a clanger, in retrospect.
– P
via HuffingtonPost which has the details.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt #GCSB
“I don’t think the inquiry was a botch-up at all” [Chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Andrew Kibblewhite] said, although mistakes were made about providing certain information.
Right. All good, then?
Read coverage of the Privileges committee ‘hearing’ into the just ever so slightly botched-up inquiry set up by GCSB minister John Key into who leaked the Kitteridge report — a was-gonna-be-published-a-week-later-anyway report on illegal spying on New Zealanders by the Government Communications Security Bureau.
Fairfax: Release of reporter’s records probed
NZ Herald: Collins criticises leak probe inquiry
– P
Planning
Spotted this on my walk yesterday. It made me chuckle.
Please stop taking pictures of your genitals
Oh dear, my first thought was, Are radio stations in one of their ratings survey periods again, by any chance? (Or is this guy just a twit?)
Also: I laughed at the offer as an ‘excuse’ … that he meant to send a Snapchat picture of his genitals to a female co-worker. Oh, gee, that’s completely different. (Not.)
Gives a whole new meaning to ‘finger trouble’, doesn’t it?
Have you voted in Campbell Live’s GCSB poll?
I have not participated in the angst-ridden/gloating discussion about how spymaster prime minister John Key ‘performed’ in his appearance on Campbell Live this week — ostensibly to defend and/or justify his GCSB Bill and its new, to-be-expanded powers of domestic surveillance provisions.
Judging by a superficial reading of the reaction to the interview, people’s view of the encounter largely fell into the realm of “What you see depends on where you stand”.
Adding colour to history
Here, via the Twisted Sifter blog, is a historical, iconic photo with colour added after the fact.
As a photographer I've always liked B/W imagery. In a lot of cases, but by no means all (and some spectacular exceptions) the amount of “information” added by colour can be minimal — but clearly, colour is more realistic.
This is very cool.
See more great examples at Twisted Sifter.
– P
