Trivia: Excellent and Guaranteed Useless

[Amy Probenski]

The One Semester of Spanish Spanish Love Song

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[Juggler]

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[Amy Probenski]

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[Juggler]

Here is a truly shocking video featuring a woman who demonstrates exactly what our American educational system is producing.

Compete with the rest of the world? Forget about it. We'll be lucky if they'll let us do their laundry.

[nudgewink]

This is a simply wonderful misapplication of technology !

And what a nice girl.

I'll drink to that.

[Wise One]

Dit is een uitstekend video uit Nederland.



Waar!
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[Uji]

Wonderful. Didn't know where that one was going... Especially like the music.

[Neck-aint-red]

Me too!

Hey, here's a guide to the blogosphere, showing how to navigate everything from News to Opinion, from the Earnest to the Scurrilous. You can click on any of them to go there.

I'll never keep up with all this stuff.

[Juggler]

[Juggler]

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[Juggler]

Ahhh, ze French, zey are zo hot hot hot.

And ze Quebecois, zey are not zo bad zemselves but not zo zexy.

[Wise One]

Times, they are a changin' ... another technology bites the dust.

Paul Simon must be in the depths of despair.

[nudgewink]

Here's a head-scratcher. Is there a flaw here? Or is there a larger truth that might be applied nationally in our time of economic despair?

An Idea for Solving THE Global Financial Crisis?

It is August. In a small town on the South Coast of France, holiday season is in full swing, but it is raining so there is not too much business happening.

Everyone is in debt. The local economy is stalled.

Luckily, a rich Russian tourist arrives in the foyer of the small local hotel. He asks for a room and puts a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, takes a key and goes to inspect the room located up the stairs on the third floor.

The hotel owner takes the banknote in a hurry and rushes to his meat supplier to whom he owes E100.

The butcher takes the money and races to his supplier to pay his debt.

The wholesaler rushes to the farmer to pay E100 for pigs he purchased some time ago.

The farmer triumphantly gives the E100 note to a local prostitute who gave him her services on credit .

The prostitute goes quickly to the hotel, as she was owing the hotel for her hourly room use to entertain clients.

At that moment, the rich Russian is coming down to reception and informs the hotel owner that the proposed room is unsatisfactory and takes his E100 back and departs.

There was no profit or income. But everyone no longer has any debt and the small townspeople look optimistically towards their future.

COULD THIS BE THE SOLUTION TO THE Global Financial Crisis?

[Uji]

Here's a head-scratcher. Is there a flaw here?

No flaw at all, I think. The problem is that if anyone along the daisy-chain either doesn't trust the next link's ability to repay (and won't lend to her), or everybody is willing to lend but one decides to use the 100 Euros to buy a new iphone rather than pay her debt, the circle breaks.

Maybe the point is that local economies might actually work the way the story suggests, a global economy probably never will.

[Wise One]

That is so neat!

I've been scratching my head, can't find a flaw either.

I'm thinking that the rich Russian might be serving a role that is operationally analogous to that of a national bank. Supplies money temporarily, impelling an increase in its velocity in the economy.

(think Federal Reserve)

[coondog]

TRIVIA

This seems to be the proper category in which to post:

ADIOS JACKO!

.............and thats about all that needs be said. But, of course we can't stop at that, can we? Our fascination to the point of idolotry with freaky entertainers, athletes and octomoms is insatiable. The more perverse and demented the better!

And.....Holy Moley! The King of Pop took too many prescription drugs. One might, by examining the contents of one's own medicine cabinet, conclude that it was the one thing he had in common with everyone else.

It may well be that Coondog is one of the few celebrities who did not have a personal relationship with Michael Jackson. Although, I do own a copy of Thriller on cassette tape. Maybe that counts! Probably not.

So.....what's all the fuss about? Yes, the Count of Creepiness was a force in the music industry for decades, but, what has he done for us lately....besides the obvious heart attack? And, why is this breaking news on anything but the E Channel?

(CNN) – New York Rep. Peter King called on the media to "knock out the psycho-babble" and stop covering Michael Jackson because "this guy was a pervert."

"He was a child molester. He was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country," King said Sunday in front of the American Legion Hall in Wantagh. "We're too politically correct. No one wants to stand up and say, 'We don't need Michael Jackson.'"

Peter King has a point! I don't remember this much ado when the true icons of the 60's went to their eternal reward: Timothy Leary. Hunter Thompson. Rodney Dangerfield.

Elvis is, after all, the King!

Coondog

[Wise One]

Michael Jackson was talented, made significant contributions to music and dance, and had notable business success.

Now that I have avoided speaking ill of the dead, I'll only opine that most of the folderol over his death and funeral seems deliberately to be flogged by AEG and his surviving family for the clear and narrow purpose of maximizing their revenues.

That being the case, I'll pay it no further attention, a stance I also take toward professional spectator sports.

I have no enthusiasm whatever for the machinations of corporations whose profits I will never share.

[coondog]

Easy for you to say! All attempts to avoid said circus has been thwarted by the ill advised selection of
CNN as a home page.

But, maybe it was worth it. How else would I have known that, besides selected fans and assorted talents, the memorial service would be attended by none other than Michael Jackson himself.

Wow! This is reminds me of Weekend at Bernie's 2!!!!!!!!!

Now.....if he gets up and starts dancing when the music starts.........that will be something.

Coondog

Irreverant? Possibly!

[fangz1956]

Speaking as one who basically grew up and came of age with Michael Jackson (and Motown was a big part of the soundtrack of my life), he will be missed as a gifted and talented artist. As for the rest, I think he simply couldn't find the approval he so desperately sought........the critical approval of self that we each must find within ourselves in order to be happy. The various faces of addiction took that away from the boy-man. With the exception of one single program the after he died, I've steered clear of the media frenzy and ignored the hoopla of the masses and the greed of the father. I do have a choice and I choose to remember the person whose music gave beauty to my life. May his tortured soul finally find peace, love, and happiness.

[Uji]

This week's Economist says that Jackson's record company has sold more of his records in the last week than they had in the previous 10 years. Clearly -- by the measure of this culture -- he was an "artistic" success. (And, I suppose, his death was his final brilliant business move.)

But then, maybe the market place is not the place to gauge such things ... Personally, I have no use for him or his music. A sad fellow, I guess, but not one that has had any effect on me alive or dead. (He was -- according to no-less than Fred Astaire -- "the greatest dancer who ever lived." I don't know; I've got no dog in that fight... but then I don't get much outta Fred Astaire, either. )

There are potential "Mozarts/Einsteins" born every generation; but few have the character to realize their talent -- which is why actual Mozarts and Einsteins are so rare (not because their talent is). Jackson clearly had a gift, but not the wherewithal to turn into something beyond a very marketable commodity. Like Presley, he will no doubt go into the Pantheon of "celebrities" -- folks famous for being famous -- their music simply a metonym for their sad selves, and those selves idolized by what must be even sadder fans.

But then, one person's sick-f**k is another's entertainment, I guess.