The famed educational establishment is getting all sorts of heat since they’re inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at their campus. Seems he had a hole in his schedule since he wasn’t going to be visiting Ground Zero. (No word yet on whether he’ll be permitted to go to Disneyland. And if you have to ask why I brought that up, you’re too young for me to explain it.)
Naturally the University is being hammered by people who want to see the invitation revoked, because they’re incensed that they’re being forced to come and listen to him express his viewpoints over…
Oh. Wait. That’s right. No one is forcing them to do so, any more than people who are repulsed by certain TV programs or radio shows have had the “off” buttons removed from their TVs and radios.
No, it seems that they are revolted by the very IDEA of the Iranian thug getting up on a stage at Columbia and denying the Holocaust ever existed.
Except…this is America. And at the core of what makes this country great is that, if we find an idea repulsive, we’re supposed to respond to it with more ideas, not the smothering of those ideas. He wants to claim the Holocaust didn’t happen? Fantastic. Have him do so, and then confront him with survivors of concentration camps, or soldiers who were there when the camps were liberated. Let him call each and every individual a liar to their face, if he can.
But who knows what the long-term result could be? There’s no such thing as an instant life-transforming epiphany. Even when it seems that’s what’s happened, odds are that the groundwork was laid for it over the course of years. Someone like the Iranian president (which is easier to type than his name) isn’t going to instantly realize he’s wrong, but perhaps the seeds of doubt can be planted, in him or in other deniers. It’s worth a shot. The dissemination of ideas is ALWAYS worth a shot.
In point of fact, he probably should have been allowed to lay a wreath at Ground Zero. And he should have been met there by an assemblage of family members of victims, standing there with photos of their loved ones staring accusingly, putting a human face on the terrorism that he purportedly supports.
Perhaps he won’t care. Chances are he won’t. But again, you never know. The man, for all his bluster, for all his vituperation, for all his wrongheadedness, clearly has a fascination with this country, almost as if he’s seeking our approval and has absolutely no comprehension how to go about it.
We speak wistfully of world peace. Of everyone getting along. But many people are reluctant to fully get behind the first step to such a goal, which is to understand the views of those in opposition to them. I’m not saying “agree with” or “condone.” I’m saying “understand.” Understanding why people believe what they believe, and–if you disagree with them–doing your dámņëdëšŧ to make them understand YOUR point of view. Understanding one’s enemy on human terms is the only real path to peace, which should be self-evident since thus far dehumanizing the enemy or trying to bomb him into oblivion hasn’t gotten the job done.
The song says, “Give peace a chance.” Won’t ever happen if speech is smothered.
PAD
• 
Mike has shown an inability to empathize with other human beings, Micha. Whether it’s willful or indicative of a deficiency over which he has no control, I don’t know. Frankly, I’ve realized that he is entirely irrelevant and I no longer bother to address him directly.
Bill Myers: I presume you understood I was joking with Micha about his excellent forebearance and good manners. I do not at all mean that he doesn’t belong here, but rather that he has maintained a standard very few are even able to recognize. Of course he belongs here: It would be a worse site without him.
It’s refreshing that an Israeli is offering some of the most clear-headed commentary on the Iranian President. I have serious misgivings about some aspects of Israeli internal policy, but Micha makes me hopeful good sense will prevail.
Jeffrey, I very much like and admire Micha as well. But I take issue with the statement that he has “maintained a standard very few are even able to recongize.” The trolls here make an inordinate amount of noise but are very much in the minority. The vast majority of posters here are quite civil and a pleasure to interact with.
OK, enough. I try to be polite. I’m happy my efforts are appreciated. i certainly appreciate the politeness and friendliness of others. We’re all good.
“I have serious misgivings about some aspects of Israeli internal policy”
I have many serious misgivings about Israeli policies, and I don’t object to israel being criticized. It is good for it in some cases. I assume you also are critical of aspects of your government’s policies, and of your society and of your history, as much as I am of mine, so long as the criticism doesn’t go overboard to a kind of mindless bashing. It’s like the difference between demonstrating against the war in Vietnam and burning the american flag and owning a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book.
I think there’s a beatles song about this difference.
Micha: “OK, enough.”
No, let’s go further. Let’s form a Micha Fan Club. We’ll call it the Micha-Mouse Club. We’ll all wear Micha-Mouse ears and sing the Micha-Mouse song.
You’ve all more-or-less demonstrated you don’t know what a koan is:
What all the enduring religions have in common is the notion that reason cannot be all things to anyone, cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual. In the Old Testament, God acknowledges Job’s grievance against Him, but responds by giving a nonsensical account of His accomplishments, to which Job ultimately bows rather than take his wife’s advice to curse God.
According to Joseph Campbell, in Islam Satan didn’t fall from heaven because he considered himself too good to bow to man, as God ordered him to do, but because he was single-mindedly devoted to God and he refused to bow to man because he tried to make that devotion all things to him. Hëll is hëll to Satan because of the absence of the object of his devotion, God, in his banishment.
Even in the grail myth there is a criticism of the sterile rationalizations of the grail-king, which is the foundation of his wounded state.
This notion that reason cannot cannot fulfill all the needs of an individual is formally institutionalized in Buddhism in the practice of the koan. The koan most commonly referred to in the west are the most curt ones, asking the sound of one hand clapping, asking the the sound of a falling if there is no listener, etc.
One famous koan-like incident that comes to mind is of an intruder interrupting a Zen master holding court with his students. He says that the Zen master is a fraud and that he can’t manipulate the intruder.
The Zen master tells him to listen and he can demonstrate how he can make the intruder obey his will. The Zen master tells the intruder to approach him, then tells him to stop. Then he tells the intruder to move to his right and when to stop. Then he tells the intruder he’s moved too far and to move back a little to the left. Then he says, “Thank you, you’ve obeyed my will perfectly. Now sit down and shut up.”
If you don’t understand what all this has to do with anything, simply consider this:
When referring to posterity, my critics here on occasion have portrayed academia in high esteem in judging me. The three items above are what must be overcome for that judgment to be harsh. You might want to consider getting as comfortable as you can with the prospect those notions will endure indefinitely.
Wow. Like, heavy, man. Deep.
You’ve officially become a cartoon caricature of a real person.
Another really intersting subject debased by Mike in service of his megalomania.
His example speaks for itself. If budhism had a dark side, Mike would have been its practitioner.
By denying without invalidating anything I said, you demonstrate you can’t handle the real deal.
I’ve made my peace with Mike’s presence here. He’s unlikely to leave any time soon and there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, at the end of the day I still get to be me and he still has to be Mike. I come out way, way, waaaayyyy ahead. So what’s to be upset about?
Mike: “…you demonstrate you can’t handle the real deal.”
If you were truly confident that you’re the “real deal,” you wouldn’t feel the need to tell us.
Frankly, if I were you, I’d be insecure as well.
Take care.
Bill, you’re right.
Mike,
1) I didn’t deny what you said. For all I know you actually believe it.
2) If you really cared about enlightenment — of yourself or of others — instead of your own ego you wouldn’t be so concerned about people denying, disproving, disqualifying, invalidating, etc. everything you say, nor would you react rudely to people who challenged your statements (especially if they were koans which exists in order to challenge the mind).
I myself have said, with so many of you willing to indulge in what I simply observe you doing, it’s a wonder anything I say antagonizes anyone.
Zen Wisdom:
My students, gather around and contemplate the simple sponge. The sponge when placed in clean water will absorb clean water into itself. When removed from the clean water, the sponge can then be drained of its contents with the mildest squeeze.
This attribute can be used to do something as simple as cleaning a floor or as vital as carrying water to a fevered man. The sponge does not change, but its value does.
Likewise, if you place a sponge into a tainted pool of water, it will fill itself with the vile liquid. It will not refuse to absorb this content anymore then it will refuse to release it when squeezed. The sponge does not change, but its value does.
This is the nature of the sponge. It merely absorbs and then releases with no true mind of its own.
The danger comes when the sponge absorbs bad waters as well as good waters. The bad waters will taint the good waters in the body of the sponge. Sometimes, this can be so thorough as to completely destroy all quality of the good water. The sponge cannot keep these waters from mixing within itself. Thus, when the tainted sponge is squeezed, the waters it releases are no longer of any value. They are as of much use to a man as the tainted waters themselves. That is to say… None.
But the sponge itself does not realize this. The sponge sees no difference in the pure waters or the tainted waters. To its existence, they are both the same and treated thusly. The sponge will take into itself the good and the bad and then release its contents unaware of the tainted nature of it.
You ask yourselves, my students, how this applies to you. Simple. Knowledge is very much like water. If you absorb pure water, clean water, then you will also release that when and where you need to. If you absorb tainted water, it can destroy the clean water as well.
But men are not sponges. You have the ability to separate the tainted water from the clean water inside of you. You can find the ability to discern good knowledge from bad. You can stop yourselves from simply releasing unaware onto others the tainted waste that a sponge would mindlessly release while believing it to all be equally good in the end.
This ability, my students, is what makes you all men and women of rational learning.
This inability is what make Mike a sponge.
Now, see if you can take the novelty dice from my hand, Grasshoppers.
What I’d like to hear is whether or not Columbia got what it expected from all this, how useful it was to those in the Iranian studies program, and whether or not all the coverage, both media and political, was an asset or a detriment to them.
Micha, just so you know, when I eventually get us into a house, you’re on the party guest list. Now if it wasn’t for that needing-money-to-get-a-house thing and that pesky Atlantic Ocean, it’d be next week. I’d make a joke about Mike staying in Egypt because he’s so fond of DeNile, but I’m too darn tired to waste the effort. But of course, now I’m going to have the Micha Mouse song going through the vaccuum of my skull for at least a week.
Sean, I’ll be happy to come to your party. Just give me enough of a notice. Every once in a while I cross the seas to the US. In fact, my parents are going for a brief sabatical in Atlanta starting next week. but I’m not going to visit them this time.
Micha Mouse?
MikeSponge Squarepants?
This is heading somewhere.
Great parable Jerry. Or do you prefer Master Jerry?
As opposed to venting your disgust that I’m a troll?
By providing examples, I am simply parsing reason as far as I am able. You don’t provide examples — what’s your excuse?
Unless you are attributing to me an admission of debasement, yes you are.
Another koan-like anecdote: A student visits a Zen master and asks him how he can remove himself of suffering. The Zen master replies that his suffering is rooted in desire.
Years later the student returns to the Zen master and tells him he has divested himself of desire. He gave away all of his property, he meditates all day and all night, he had himself buried up to his neck for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days. The Zen master then asks him if, in divesting himself of desire, has he not acted on a desire.
Your denial is arbitrary.
Dude, your “good knowledge” sounds a lot like diabetes.
Bill Myers: You may be right about the percentages here. I am probably more suspicious of motives than you, but you might be more on top of this than I am.
Micha: Yes, I am very critical of many aspects of American life (huge surprise there). It would be needlessly confrontational to go very far into my complaints about the Israeli government, but they are very similar in philosophy to those I have with the U.S.: The state is presented to the world as the accomplishment of a very high ideal – the U.S. as the culmination of freedom and democracy, and Israel as a counter to authoritarian and racist ideology – so each failing is in bold relief. The U.S. is too interventionist and unequal to be a perfect image of liberty, and Israel’s settlement and citizenship policies are too inequitable to be a perfect image of a non-racist, non-authoritarian state.
Dude, your “good knowledge” sounds a lot like diabetes.
Thus proving the parable.
Great parable Jerry. Or do you prefer Master Jerry?
Hmmm.. Not sure about being called Master Jerry. Now I have shown that I can be a master at baiting Mike (so easy to do) these days, so maybe Master Ba…..
Uhm….
Master Jerry is just fine my Mus musculus like friend.
Dude, your “good knowledge” sounds a lot like diabetes.
That you’re discriminating in whose bodily-waste you imbibe? Don’t drink my urine, bro.
See, this is why Mike Posts™ have become such a fascinating thing.
One of the ladies at work is studying to be a psychologist. I’ve actually shown her Mike Posts™ before and they’ve scared the hëll out of her. She’s absolutely convinced that a mind that works as his does will be the next week long news story when he finally snaps. Seriously, she’s actually concerned that Mike, if he is really anything like what he portrays here, is an unstable time-bomb just waiting for an event.
She’s even printed out the odd few posts in a conversation and pointed out this stuff in a class or two. Some of her classmates think that, if Mike Posts™ are really what Mike’s mind is like, there’s one hëll of a book in documenting his treatments.
Some of that is due to how he links such strange things together in his mind in ways that he seems to believe are as obvious as the sun coming up.
Strong conservative beliefs = Abusing women
Discussions about the last man on Earth = Looking for “sloppy seconds”
Any woman who isn’t a virgin automatically = Being called sloppy seconds
and, without going over the entire list again, so on…
Now we have an analogy about how a sponge can be like the failings in human intelligence that Mike has warped into his own weird little world yet again. Water being the metaphor for knowledge becomes actual water. The actions of a sponge somehow, in mike’s mad little world, become diabetes in the human body.
Ok.
But then we move on to Mike’s master stroke! Mike infuses the conversation with his fetish fantasies about urine consumption.
Oooooookayy…
Again, just so we’re all sure about this, in Mike’s world..
Parables where the human mind = a sponge and knowledge = water actually mean that people want to drink pee.
Yow.
Mike, you’re projecting again and, trust me on this, telling us way more about your ideas of a fun Friday night then we really want to know. Get help very, very soon.
I can’t wait to see what her psych class does with this example of Mikeness.
You’re a bladder man than I am, Gunga Din.
Someone who posts here with some frequency please tell me you pass my posts along to co-workers, so I won’t think Jerry keeps a bag pack for when he decides he wants to move in with me.
Jerry, I won’t tell him what you keep the bag packed WITH.
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he’s right?
For people who are not familiar with he usual pattern of Mike-discussion, this is the part where I start to worry that after Mike snaps I’m going to be held responsible for the suicide/homocide/homocide-suicide/headshaving that follows.
“I can’t wait to see what her psych class does with this example of Mikeness.”
Yes, me too.
Although I think this calls for a team of psychiatric experts from around the world who will be taken to a top secret government installation and devote all their time to Mike.
“Someone who posts here with some frequency please tell me you pass my posts along to co-workers”
I tell family members about your antics. They all appreciate good comedy.
Koens? I know them, they live next door where the Levis used to live.
“What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he’s right?”
About what?
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he’s right?
Huh? About What? I mean, even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Mike once found his ášš with both hands and a flashlight but that’s not the way to bet.
So how does that work, Jerry? Are you:
Then Elie Wiesel can’t be taken at his word. Who you gonna believe, Ahmadinajad or your lying Elies?
One of the interesting things about accounts of the holocaust was the reluctance of witnesses to speak of it for decades, if it’s even done now. Vonnegut had an analogy to writing of holding a conversation in a restaurant: you speak to hold the attention of the people at your table, but do so clearly enough so that anyone listening in at least understands the appeal of what’s being said. In the public presentation of anything, you have to manage the balance of intimate and epic elements. The challenge in providing an account of the holocaust is that it’s almost all epic agenda: the naked struggle for survival of a modern people.
That’s what made Art Spiegelman’s Maus perhaps the single most-brilliant act of genius in the history of cartooning, counter-balancing the all-epic story of his parents’ survival by portraying the survivors with mouse faces.
Finding it difficult to find other posters willing to have social intercourse, Mike now answers himself – three times (a very admirable stamina, I admit).
I think he completely misunderstands the issue of the Holocaust. Many internees did speak on the issue many decades ago. Their testimony led to convictions for the sort of thing for which they hanged Class A War Criminals – building, administering and using death camps which killed many millions (even beyond the six million Jews, there were several million others, so the numbers are rather large…). I am not sure of what issue there may be that Ahmadinejad could be right about: He denies the Holocaust, which was lovingly detailed by its perpetrators; He denies that there are homosexuals in Iran, which is statistically and anecdotally unbelievable; He calls for a worldwide Shiite Caliphate, which the six billion non-Shiites would prefer not to have happen; and He (sometimes) calls for the extermination of Israel, which sounds indistinguishable from genocide. The only possible issue remaining is that he disapproves of Israeli internal and foreign policy. Oh boy! There’s a substantial bloc in the Knesset who would agree with him, without those troubling aspects of religious fanaticism, fascism, expansionism and messianic delusion.
Jeffrey,
1) About the Holocaust, many survivors found it difficult to handle and recount their experiences, some did recount them, others only years later, some never did. Much of the discussion, and the willingness to tell or listen, only occured a decade or two later.
2) See above my post crticizing the focus on the problems with Iran related to Jews and Israel. It is very important. I will not be addressing issues related to Israel or Jews below.
3) Propagandists for any cause — like Ahmadinejad — use segments of truth in order to strengthen their claims. He would say, for example, that invading Iraq was a mistake, or that the US backed the tyrannical Shah, or that Iran has the right to develop scientifically, all of which are accepted by american audiences. These truths resonate with the audience and then help obscure the larger picture, and leave opening for outright lies.
When asked about homosexuals Ahmadinejad answered that Iran, like the US, does not tolerate srug dealers who corrupt the youth, which is true. He did not say outright that he believes that homosexuality likewise is a corruption of youth that should be prevented. I’m not even sure if we can infer that from his words. Only later did he slip and say the statement that there are no homosexuals in Iran.
When asked about Women’s rights he replied that in Iran women are highly respected, which I’m certain is also true. The nature of the interview made it impossible to have a serious conversation about what respecting women constitutes in american and Iranian culture.
a different example of the same method was applied by Bush to get support for the Iraqi war. Bush repeated truths accepted by most of us: that democracy is good, that the people of Iraq deserve democracy, that Saddam was bad, that he attacked his neighbors in the past, and so forth. But he neglected to present a realistic account of the consequences of invading Iraq.
So Ahmadinajad said things that are right, but you have to keep an eye on the complete picture. From my experience people usually don’t when it comes to political issues — and you can see it both in the right and the left.
Sorry, guys, I wasn’t clear. (I also wasn’t all the way concious.) I also forgot that you can’t read my mind. (Even if you could, you wouldn’t WANT to…) When I asked if he was right, I wasn’t talking about the Holocaust, first off. No, what I was wondering was if maybe they really AREN’T creating weapons at their nuclear plants and if the international community stopping(well, trying to) their progress is hurting the Iranian people. I wouldn’t want some poor child in Iran to be hurt or not have power because the rest of the world is making assumptions. Or, what if we really are the bad guys? Now, mind you, I don’t think he’s right about any of it, but I also don’t KNOW. And, since I’m not going to be in Iran any time soon, and even if I did, I doubt they’d let someone like me know all their secrets. I can see it now. “Hey, come on in, we loved your video, wanna see something really cool? You just can’t tell anyone or we’ll cut your head off!”
So how does that work, Jerry? Are you:
1) Bring up a thread on her computer and she reads it at her leisure.
2) Email her a thread link and she reads them at her leisure.
It’s not like it’s rocket science. But I can understand how the normal interaction between friends on a daily bases can seem so confusing, alien and downright incomprehensible to you.
What scares me about Ahmadinajad is actually kind of a big thing, really. What if he’s right?
Sean,
To some degree, it’s really a six of one half a dozen of the other type of thing. I’m sure that he’s telling the truth in some ways. I’m sure that Iran is looking at some of the civilian applications of nuclear power as well as the military applications. I’m completely sure that the sanctions that we place on just about any country hurt the population as much or more then the dictator.
Iraq was a prime example of that. The more that the sanctions were tightened to squeeze Saddam, the more Saddam played the system to divert whatever was there away from the people and toward himself.
But what are you going to do? Reasoned negotiations aren’t all that useful with a ideologue or a fanatic, compromise only works if both parties intend to actually follow through in an honorable fashion and simply ignoring a problem works less well in this day and age then it did when the most sophisticated weapon mankind could build was a ballista and the fastest mode of transportation still took weeks or months to travel across countries and waterways.
So what options do you have after that? Sanctions that are never 100% effective in their use or 100% accurate in who they actually target or, as Bush and his cronies will happily tell you, going to war with “the bad guys” of the world. Which is the lesser evil for a sane mind to choose? Which will do more damage and hurt more innocents in the long run?
And even then, no matter which answer you give, the other choice is equally right sometimes. Hëll, Cuba has been made worse the wear for some of the U.S. sanctions on it (even if the rest of the world could care less about trading with them) while Castro has been sitting pretty throughout his entire career as El Presidente. If you could change history, would you have invaded Cuba/helped others overthrow Castro/assassinated the bášŧárd? Those that say no condemn the people of Cuba to what thy have suffered. Those who say yes role the dice with no guarantee of success and no guarantee that whoever replaced Castro wouldn’t have been worse.
So we’re back to sanctions and the random suffering and death that they cause amongst the innocent. We’re back to an almost always mostly useless tool that is little more then a better option to full out war. Three cheers for politics.
But at least you have the humanity and the decency to ask such a question. I know a whole lot of people who wouldn’t. I know a lot of people who are still mired in the line of thought that places the people of any given country on the same level of evil as whatever dictator or groups of dictators rules over them. I just wish I had a real answer for you rather then just a rambling post. If I did, it’s a pretty good bet that I’d be doing something a whole lot different with my life then I am now.
None of those posts were responding to posts by me. You seem to be having difficulty insulting me based on anything I’ve done.
You took my option 2. You also seem to be having difficulty insulting me based on anything I’ve done. Thank you for answering my question.
Read over this thread again, and I realized something. Whoever thought they could actually get an answer to any of this from someone, like the people that gave that question to that girl from South Carolina, is either Optimus Pollyana or just likes seeing people squirm when they can’t come up with the quick answer.
Bill, on that voyage of self discovery, what’d he hold the flashlight with? Not a good visual, man!
And, embarassing as it is, the only thing I can contribute to the other thing going on in this thread is Open Micha Night. Not to be confused, of course, with either the guy with the Trans Am or the one who keeps making movies that people erroneously(in my opinion, anyway) think are surprising at the end.
And dude, you haven’t shown anyone any posts by me that matched any of those descriptions. You haven’t shown anyone any posts by me including the words “conservative,” “abuse,” and “women” or synonyms of them. You haven’t shown anyone any posts by me including the words “last man” and “sloppy seconds” or their synonyms. You haven’t shown anyone any posts by me saying all non-virgins are easy. You aren’t not only a member of the “Links Such Strange Things Together” Club for Men, you’re also the president.
You displayed a disgust at the prospect of having sex with easy women — so much so I inferred you found the prospect of having sex with someone who hasn’t been intimate with anyone else especially exciting. Boo-f.n.-hoo. That isn’t the same thing as saying all non-virgins are easy. And you could have simply given your own account as either a “yes” or a “no.”
I don’t even know why that would even piss you off. You could have been so sweet a guy that love, whose reach extends further than reason, is all things to you — and that you held out for someone whom your love could have fulfilled as completely as hers did you. Instead your hostility to being portrayed as something so sweet demonstrates you are challenged in experiencing simple pleasures.
When you cash in your right to speak at the University of California, boy will I be in for it.
When you cash in your right to speak at the University of California, boy will I be in for it.
Oh, am I going to be speaking to the members of the psychology department?
But that’s Our Mike: imagines that he is so important a part of our lives that we think of him at all times.
On the other hand, I’d love to see you, Mike, get a chance to speak to our tolerant friends at the U of C. 5 minutes into it and they would all be there with their mouths hanging open like a scene for The Producers, until Maureen Stanton shouts out “For the love of God, bring back Larry Summers!”
What we need is the psychiatric equivalent of Dr. House.
——–
Sean, surely i’m not the only one on this board who can be turned into a cartoon character. Golly.
———-
We can’t know for certain that Iran will use it’s nuclear technology to develop weapons. There may be intelligence we are not aware of, but we are all familiar with the failings of intelligence agencies. You can look at the arguments and counter-arguments that are not secret (see wikipedia for example) — but these are not very certain either. You can go on conjecture and assume that a country like Iran is unlikely to develop nuclear technology and not develop nuclear weapons. But this is just an assumption. Still, you can’t ignore completely a potential risk just because you’re not 100% certain. But what to do? Jerry already talked about the inherent problems of economic sanctions, but they are not useless either.
It is not easy to make these decisions. There’s a lot of balancing to do. The US won the cold war against the USSR. This was a good thing. But there wre a lot of bad decisions made along the way.
In general I don’t recommend thinking of anybody as good guys or bad guys. Focus on intentions, actions and consequences.
Yeah, but turning ME into a cartoon character(Or a character from Of Mice and Men) isn’t all that hard, funny, or entertaining for most people. And Meyers started it. Whimper.
Unfortunately, sanctions are sometimes like pedaling on an airplane. Sure, you’re working yourself really hard, but unless by some miracle Lockheed and Boeing have abandoned jet fuel in favor of people power, your feet are moving in circles with the only affect being the interior of the cabin sounds like a mutant hamster convention. Lots of noise, little affect. Until, of course, someone in power realizes that the people are being hurt. Most times, I don’t get the impression that the people in charge in these situations are that concerned about their people. At least, not until the leaders become affected.
“Sean, surely i’m not the only one on this board who can be turned into a cartoon character. Golly.”
You’re not alone and you’re not even the first mouse. Bill & Bill Cat Foods Unlimited turned me into an unwilling mascot, a cartoon mouse being victimized by cartoon cats, some years ago now in order to shill their crappy product. Fortunately, I managed to successfully sue to get my face off their product (they wouldn’t pay me) before it was discovered that Bill (Myers) was importing Chinese wheat gluten from questionable sources and Bill (Mulligan) was using used mortician’s wax from his films to “add body” to the product.
I am just sooooo happy that I wasn’t around for that lawsuit.
Man, did that psychologist post of mine touch a nerve in ol’ Mad Mikey or what?
~8?O
Micha, don’t worry about our dear Mr. Chandler. He’s just happy there’s nobody named Tom around here that we can get to chase him. That’s why he still talks about the cat food thing, even though part of his settlement was to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Every chance he gets though, mouthing off about the cat food–I’d say it’s an obsession. Calvin Klein’s gonna be mad.
Jerry Chandler: “Bill & Bill Cat Foods Unlimited turned me into an unwilling mascot, a cartoon mouse being victimized by cartoon cats, some years ago now in order to shill their crappy product.”
Crappy? CRAPPY? How DARE you, sir? How DARE you?
I’ll have you know that our cat food was made with the finest industrial waste, grade-A animal vomit byproducts, and top-of-the-line recycled cow dung!
Now that I think about it, those are the same ingredients that go into Mike’s posts.
“I’ll have you know that our cat food was made with the finest industrial waste”
I thought it was imitation industrial waste.
“Now that I think about it, those are the same ingredients that go into Mike’s posts.”
Don’t forget sugar and spice and everything nice.
No, only when you think about booty.
I simply wondered — since you have fabricate things for me to have said to outrage you — what I did say to antagonized you. Your not providing your own account of your experience — or even a denial of my account — leaves mine the only plausible explanation. n ≠ Rocket+Surgery
No, Micha, the sugar and all that goes into the PERFUME, not the cat food. It’s easy to get the two confused, I know, seeing as how they’re the same consistency. Easy way to remember, though, they put a hint of pink dye into the perfume. Well, they do when it doesn’t dissolve before it gets in there.