Dakota Today

***NPR Radio story, Don Quixote, Pro-Rassling, and coffee cups

This afternoon, I was listening to NPR and I am not sure what the show was, but it was some kind of combination of reporting  on professional rassling, not to be confused with wrestling, and which in their story was heavily scripted.  What each pro-rassler was supposed to say and do in what sequence, etc.  Then their story seemed to move into a situation where there was a conflict or mixture of scripted and unscripted.  I am probably not giving sufficient credit to the depth of the story.  Then practically without taking a breath, at least one that I remember, they launched into a discussion of Cervante and Don Quixote.

This discussion involved the mixture of complete fiction mixed with observation and strange inserts of data and info in a book or two back in something like 1602 that spread across the world.  Cervantes apparently mixed his tale with reports of his research into history and how that might or might not relate to the truth of the story.  And then how he mixed his story with a character that was pulled from another author who took advantage of the first book by Cervantes to write a kind of counterfeit Vol.2.  Cervantes worked this character into his actual Vol. 2.  I may have this story and how it was reported somewhat scrambled since I was also driving in good scenery and also traffic at the time.

Anyway, these or this story on NPR with its mixture of info got me thinking about how some cups I bought were sort of emblematic of the story.  These are coffee cups with an image of a coffee cup on the coffee cup.  I bought them and then started thinking how that combination was a bit silly in a way.  That kind of silly combination seemed to fir the two NPR stories or their combination depending on how they intended it.

Well, this may be totally silly, but what one thinks about while talking to yourself while driving may not be the usual fare and quite so narrowly logical as other times.  Which reminds me that I was listening to a Glen Cambell song  as I drove through Wall, SD.  About in the center of the interstate segment passing Wall, I heard, "the phone ringing off the wall".  So much for mildly amusing coincidences.

*** Stay tuned even if this post does not rise high in the logic realm--- Doug Wiken

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*** A cartoon still too appropriate for the Trump campaign inaugural "address" and link to text

A little rough scribbling in need of a real artist.

The Trump inaugural "address" unfortunately matched the worst assumptions of the talking heads attempting to predict his speech content.  More campaign promises he cannot or will not fulfill.  The "forgotten" are perceived to be the convenient fools by Trump and organization.  But judge for yourself.  I have posted text at Raucus Caucus.

**Stay tuned and hope for better "art" in the future.--- Doug Wiken

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*** Castrated, blind, lame yellowdog on life support (R)

This is a test of true blue Republican blood and credentials.  If you see TRUMP on a ballot it is actually an acronym for Castrated, blind, lame yellowdog on life support (R).  (I am not sure about that acronym, but have started reading a Dave Berry book and from that, I can see it is no problem.  There must be a language somewhere in the universe where the acronym is correct).  But back to the test.

If you are a certifiable true believer Republican, all you will see in the above is the (R) and you will know what to do even if TRUMP himself is claiming your vote will be stolen or dumped into a Ronald Reagan toxic waste dump.  The TRUMP poll watchers will absolutely KNOW who you voted for and you will be awarded within days by mail a CCRTBCM (Certificate of Certifiable Republican True Believer of Candidates and Mythology).  This and $10 will get you a couple loaves of bread, but more importantly, presenting it to a mental health facility will gain you instant permanent admission to a new living space with lots of agreeable company (if you live in South Dakota).

And, as you gnaw your way through two loaves of bread, you must remember that you have absolutely no excuse or reason to ever vote for any Democratic candidate even if their positions completely represent your best interests and mirror your actual thinking when that happens.  Your Republican God will never forgive you and you will be listed on the permanently damned and banned from state work (If you live in South Dakota).

*** Stay tuned even if you are partisanly deaf--- Doug Wiken

 

 

Palindrome is not a football running back

A few days ago somebody posted on a Facebook page a palindrome.  If you check Wikipedia or a printed dictionary you will find that a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same frontward or backward.  The usual example is "madam". According to Wikipedia, Ben Jonson developed the word---"The word "palindrome" was coined by the English playwright Ben Jonson in the 17th century from the Greek roots palin (πάλιν; "again") and dromos (δρóμος; "way, direction"). "  A printed dictionary indicated it meant "running back".  Thus the post title and the football humbug.

It seems to me (for a little more humbug) that the word meaning the same as "Palindrome" should instead be a word with the same meaning, but which also reads the same backward and forward.  "Palindrome" backwards is "Emordnilap".  Sort of ironic I thought.  Just now I checked for "Emordnilap" in a link below the post suggested by TypePad.  Rosetta Code indicates the word "Emordnilap" means a word with different meanings when read forward and backward example given is " Lager and Regal".  Not sure how serious to take this however.  Another site with wordplay on Palindrome

Anyway, those of you with more word and Latin, Greek, etc knowledge than I have might want to think about some  some word that will mean the same as "palindrome", but which will read the same backward and forward. Note of April 23, 2016----- Here are a couple examples: Referarefer, Redoder, reversrever..  Surely you can do better.

** Stay tuned---especially if you have some time for some foolishness now and then--- Doug Wiken

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** This and that..Old gray gravy train and stretching time

The Schumpeter column in the Economist magazine for April 9th, 2016 page 69 discusses over-60s as a market force to be seriously considered.  Older consumers are the richest consumers.  I still feel like a spring chicken, but my whiskers and hair betray that claim.  In any case for several years I have thought the emphasis on young buyers and as TV ad watchers has been out of proportion to common sense.  The column suggests this is because the relatively young people in ads and TV view older people's place as out-of-sight and out-of-mind.  Kim Kardashian must appeal to some fringe, but even a tiny bit of celebrity "news" is too much.  CBS Morning News is now mostly morning tripe, youth style,  and humbug even if Charlie Rose lends something even as his evening PBS performance sucks more nearly every week

Some designers and car manufacturers are even thinking that larger more readable type on controls, etc. might even make sense.  It is about time.  Tiny light gray type on slightly darker gray plastic background may seem classy to the artsy-fartsy, but it is barely legible in either bright sun or with car lighting.

But change is on the way and it is early in the revolution.  Just in time probably for the millennials turning gray and stiff.

Well that was this and by now this is that.  I have determined that the easiest way to make 5 days seem like 5 months is to spend 5 days listening to SDPB-radio during fund-raising times.  Even so, I may contribute again next year, but every fundraising "event" makes that decision harder.   My aggravation sensor is getting more sensitive as years go by.

*** Stay tuned anyway---- Doug Wiken

 

 

 

 

You won't die or your ears won't fall off if you miss.......

Trust me on this.  You can miss the Super Bowl, you can miss the Emmy show, you can miss the Oscar show and your ears won't fall off, nor will you be shunned by anybody who actually makes a damn bit of difference.  Also, you won't turn into a faceless mole if you aren't first in your neighborhood to see the latest super-hyped movie.  Give the movies time and sooner or later they will be on a $3.99 DVD or rent for $1.

You will miss nothing by waiting or ignoring the hyped tripe.  The same goes for sports shows of all kinds.  Whether school kids destroying their brains on a football field or a professional animal doing the same on a corporate pro field you can ignore all this mindless trash and suffer no consequences.  Also, you can toss the sports news and the magazines devoted to celebrity trash and you will not be harmed.  You may even escape the mindless social tribalism associated with this nonsense.  Feel free.

The only "serious" problem that results is  working with cross-word puzzles and you are clueless who was the MVP on a 1965 champion team  or which starlet popped out of her dress at an Oscar show or wondering who was that rapper who urged raping every female in sight.

*** Stay tuned and stay sane----- Doug Wiken

 

 

***We caught the gate opener in action today

Neighbors have cattle on school land across road from our farm house.  Several times I have seen the gate apparently left open.  They tie it with a rope looped around a few times, but not knotted.

Today I caught the miscreant gate opener red-tongued.  One of their calves was chewing on the rope and clunk the gate opens.  Before I could walk across the road, four of the little outlaws were outside the pasture.  When they saw me coming they went over the gate on the ground of course dragging and twisting the barbed wire.  When I tied up the gate again, about 3 feet of the rope was wet with calf slobber.  By then the calves had the cows running.  I think by the time the gate was tied, they were a few thousand feet south.  It was cooler today than yesterday and much cooler than the day before that.  Good day for rambunctious curious calves.

Now, if the guys got one of those crank and cable gate closers, it would take a slightly smarter calf or a much luckier one to get the cotter key out and let the crank spin.

Good news, it is not vandals opening the gate.  Bad news is I did not get a video of it.

*** Stay tuned even if plain old type is so retrograde these days--- Doug Wiken

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*** Stan Whiting..Boots Off, Boots On... 1943-2013

*** An old joke from Alben Barkley-- Remember him?

This was about a 40- year- old joke when I read it in 1963 or 1964 in a book by Alben W. Barkley I found in the Winner High School library.  Tonight on SDPB-Radio, Jazz Nightly Uncle Jimmo had a quiz that asked for the name of Harry Truman's VP.  I could not remember his name  for anything, but once I heard it, I remembered the old joke. Unfortunately, of all the back-country "wisdom" in the book, all I remember of it was this  old joke.

A young lady about to get married wrote to an advice columnist and was wondering if she should tell her prospective husband a few of her family secrets.   She wrote," I have already told him about my uncle who was a bank robber, and the brother-in-law who was a horse thief, and my mother who got caught embezzling from the ladies aid, but do you think I should ever dare tell him about my fourth cousin on my father's side who is a Republican? "

Note: That reminds me--- I found the book still for sale apparently.

*** Stay tuned even if lightning also knocked out YOUR DVD-VCR recorder---Doug Wiken

 

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*** Looney Tunes, KELO, Captain 11 At AVClub

A three-year old post here at Dakota Today has been getting lots of hits from the AVClub site.  Apparently the writer there is originally from South Dakota.  He ties in my post on the tower collapse to his story remembering Looney Tunes, Captain 11, and the barren plains of South Dakota noting in the night all that could be seen were the scattered ranch lights and the bright warning lights on the KELOLAND-KPLO tower. The writer took off from my post on the collapse of the tower and the missing lights.

If you wish to check the writer's perspective on Looney Tunes, etc, check the link AVCLUB--"Unleashing the cartoon anarchy....".

Incidentally, KELOLAND--KPLO has been back on the air from their new tower for several months, but Captain 11 and his broadcasts of Looney Tunes  is gone forever.

*** Stay tuned even if "That's All Folks"-- Doug Wiken

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*** The Theory of Humor, etc.

This morning , March 8, 2014,  CBS Morning almost kept me awake when they had on a guy who had co-written a book on the theory of humor.  You can find more at link below.

The "Humor Code"..Colorado Authors

Usually found on some of the sites claiming to investigate humor is an old joke about analyzing humor.  It is something like, " Investigating humor is like dissecting a frog.  When you get done, the frog is dead and nobody laughed."

But, the following suggests something said on CBS this morning that perversely relates too often to politics as well.

In collaboration with Caleb Warren, McGraw has been developing and testing a general theory of humor called the benign violation theory.  The theory builds on work by a linguist, Tom Veatch, and integrates existing humor theories to propose that humor occurs when and only when three conditions are satisfied: (1) a situation is a violation, (2) the situation is benign, and (3) both perceptions occur simultaneously. For example, play fighting and tickling, which produce laughter in humans and other primates, are benign violations because they are physically threatening but harmless attacks.

The theory also explains why humor sometimes fails – either because the violation involved does not seem benign, or because it’s so benign there is no violation. For example, play fighting and tickling cease to elicit laughter either when the attack stops (strictly benign) or becomes too aggressive (malign violation). Jokes similarly fail to be funny when either they are too tame or too risqué.

From About: Humor Code

Examples of turning something serious into something benign given this morning was the humor that exists even in places like Syria with all its carnage.  I was unable to find the CBS coverage of this, but if I do, I may have a more concise statement of this.

 

Anyway, it seemed to me that too often in politics, we have our politicians, candidates or elected, too often talking to us like their egregious self-serving or corporate bigwig serving policies are ostensibly benign when they are actually very malignant and threatening to those of us of average means.  So, for the most part, politics is intentionally not funny even if politicians stretch our credulity to the limit of sneering laughter with unintentionally absurd rhetoric often camouflage for outright lies.  Politics is too often the opposite of humor in terms of this humor theory.

 

And below, a couple of jokes I found at The American Psychological Association dicussing humor.  

 These are "garden path" jokes:

Consider this joke: A woman walks into the bar with a duck on a leash. The bartender says, " Where'd you get the pig?" The woman says, " This is not a pig. It's a duck." The bartender says, "I was talking to the duck."

Take this one-liner (please): By the time Mary had her 14th child, she'd finally run out of names ....to call her husband.

*** Stay tuned especially  if you also find nothing funny about SD politics---Doug Wiken

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