AdamSmith

One cannot let this thread go by without tossing in Mark Twain's priceless chestnut: "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." ... which he lifted, with credit, from his compeer Edgar Wilson Nye.

Revealing my inner Philistine, the most bearable -- even enjoyable -- Ring cycle I ever sat through was PBS's 1990 extravaganza. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...755C0A966958260 Of course much of the enjoyment was just being able to go peepee, or fetch a short snort of Dewar's, as the mood struck. Separately, Stu -- thank you beyond saying. Parody is the stuff of life for me, yet I knew nothing of La Russell. One's ignorance is boundless.

With respect, philosophers of morals have time and again come to view such self/family/tribe-focused concern as not terribly evolved. Having equal if not greater passion for universal rather than local application of the same principles seems to be a desirable good. You likely know many such formulations. The one famously articulated by Kohlberg is one example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg'...ral_development

... "potatoe" ...

Interesting foreign-policy-wonk view... Wonder if this rings true with firsthand observations of posters here? Gays in Latin America: Is the Closet Half Empty? By Javier Corrales After years of lagging behind, gay rights movements in Latin America are coming out into the mainstream. Most analysts haven't noticed, but a major social revolution is taking place in Latin America. The region is becoming gayer. It's not that there are more gays and lesbians living in Latin America (we would never know). Rather, the region is becoming more gay-friendly. A generation ago, Latin America was the land of the closet and the home of the macho. Today, movements fighting for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are taking advantage of the region's more globalized, open regimes. They are promoting their cause through smart, mainstream political and economic alliances. So, though closets and machos are still ubiquitous, Latin America is now the site of some of the most pro-gay legislation in the developing world. Gay rights expanded in democratic Western Europe starting in the late 1960s, and in the United States more gradually since the 1970s. Despite being democratic and kind-of-Western, Latin America lagged behind. Then, in the late 1990s, legislation started to change. In 1998, Ecuador's new constitution introduced protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 1999, Chile decriminalized same-sex intercourse. Rio de Janeiro's state legislature banned sexual-orientation discrimination in public and private establishments in 2000. In 2002, Buenos Aires guaranteed all couples, regardless of gender, the right to register civil unions. The policy changes just kept coming. In 2003, Mexico passed a federal antidiscrimination law that included sexual orientation. A year later, the government of Brazil initiated "Brasil sem homofobia" (Brazil without homophobia), a program with nongovernmental organizations to change social attitudes toward sexuality. In 2006, Mexico City approved the Societal Cohabitation Law, granting same-sex couples marital rights identical to those for common-law relationships between a man and a woman. Uruguay passed a 2007 law granting access to health benefits, inheritance, parenting, and pension rights to all couples who have cohabited for at least five years. In 2008, Nicaragua reformed its penal code to decriminalize same-sex relations. Even Cuba's authoritarian new president, Raúl Castro, has allowed free sex-change operations for qualifying citizens. Change hasn't simply come on paper. Latin American cities are also becoming increasingly gay-friendly. The number of gay-owned or gay-friendly establishments (e.g., bars, support groups, services) per capita in Latin American cities is on the rise, with some cities outperforming even the most liberal Western capitals (see sidebar). Nobody really ever thought the region was a gay desert, but there is plenty of evidence now that Latin America -- at least legally and in urban centers -- is coming out. What explains the great Latin American awakening? Among the obvious answers is regime change: It helps that the region is no longer authoritarian, because gay rights rarely expand under such conditions. It also helps that the region is solidly urbanized and that Latin American cities are becoming more globalized and richer; gay life thrives in wealthy, cosmopolitan cities. It helps that the region is not Muslim or predominantly Protestant, because countries where these religions dominate -- for example Arab or Anglo-Caribbean countries -- tend to have the least gay-friendly legislation. Yet a more surprising reason for the torrent of change has been the unexpected new clout of LGBT movements in the region. These movements have existed in some countries since the 1970s, but they have always been poor, small, plagued by enormous free-riding problems (all those people still in the closet), and devoid of strong national-level leaders. Typically, this would yield zero clout. Instead, Latin American LGBT movements have overcome their political handicaps by adopting smart tactics. Rather than turning radical and desperate, they have forged pragmatic alliances with larger, more-influential social movements. In Ecuador, for instance, they relied on the much stronger feminist movement to influence constitutional change. Likewise in Brazil, alliances with government officials proved vital to health campaigns. Movements in Argentina, Mexico, and Peru worked with local businesses to develop gay markets. LGBT movements have also made smart use of the tools afforded by globalization. They have promoted gay tourism, worked with the media to change cultural tastes, and used the Internet and academic forums to learn about[JC1] tactics that have successfully yielded change abroad. Latin America's gay-advocacy groups are not radical, anticapitalist, or antiglobalization, and this has expanded their power. Given the antiglobalization tack of many progressive social movements, Latin American LGBT advocates are minorities in more ways than just their sexuality. Clear challenges, of course, remain. Gay rights are still timid where they exist, and absent in many parts of the region, especially outside large cities. The most obvious reason is lingering homophobia. A recent survey in Brazil, the country with the largest gay-pride parades in the world, showed that 58 percent of respondents still agree with the statement, "Homosexuality is a sin against the laws of God," and 41 percent with "Homosexuality is an illness that should be treated." This is the paradox of advancing gay rights. The very same factors that make gay rights possible -- higher visibility and smart lobbying tactics -- also provoke homophobic sentiments. Despite their adept political strategies, LGBT movements have also failed to win the unequivocal support of political parties on the left, which happen to be in power in most countries of the region. Maybe the lack of party support stems from the socialist left's legendary disdain for post-materialist values and globalization -- both of which LGBT movements have embraced. Perhaps it is because of the macho approach to politics inherited from the legacies of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, or merely the innate conservatism of leftist-populists. For whatever reason, and with the sole exception of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, leftist presidents support far more timid gay legislation than gay groups want, if they support changes at all. In Ecuador last year, for instance, leftist President Rafael Correa personally blocked legalizing same-sex marriage in his new constitution, even though he filled it with plenty of other controversial articles. So though it may be true that LGBT folks love parties, in Latin America, they don't always get the parties they want. It is hard to be fully confident about the future, despite obvious progress for LGBT movements in Latin America. Gay rights and comfort zones seem to move in waves, with the ever present possibility of reversals. Changing laws and neighborhoods are no doubt a good start, but there is work to be done to counter waves of homophobia and the lack of ruling-party allies. The closet may be opening, but the jury is still out. How gay-friendly is your city? How gay-friendly is your city? In the first ever ranking of its kind, a student and I rated global cities on gay-friendliness. A city's rating was determined based on the number of gay-owned or gay-friendly establishments (e.g., bars, support groups, services) per capita. We studied the three largest cities with populations greater than 500,000 in each country, for a total of 180 cities. You can see the full index here. https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/95641/or...ess%2BIndex.pdf Our results show how Latin American cities are far from gay deserts. Compared with other cities, most Latin American cities are located in intermediate positions -- not quite at the bottom (zero to 0.99 establishments per 1 million inhabitants), not quite at the top (the 30 to 61 range). Only two of 33 Latin American cities had scores of zero (Port-au-Prince in Haiti and Tegucigalpa in Honduras). Meanwhile, Latin American cities Montevideo (Uruguay), San José (Costa Rica), and Quito (Ecuador) rank higher than New York. Most Latin American cities do much better than the majority of cities in the developing world, most of which are at the very bottom of the list (in the 0 to 0.99 range). Gay Density Index by World City Note: The first bar includes only capital cities; The other bars include all cities. This ranking does not consider issues pertaining to hate crimes, police, health services, workplace discrimination, income distribution, or housing conditions, all of which affect the gay-friendliness of any city. Yet, the ranking reveals that not all cities are equally gay, and that some of Latin America's mega-cities are mega-gay, by world standards. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4713

Aha! Somebody else who was not taken by Revolutionary Road. Interesting meditation on novel vs. film. Great Book, Bad Movie How Hollywood ruins novels By Willing Davidson ...Revolutionary Road is both the worst movie I saw this year and one of the best novels I've read. What makes the book so good and the movie so bad? And why is this divergence so unsurprising? The answer is simple, but it has complex implications: Novels are long, but movies are short. It's impossible to encapsulate the tonal shifts of a book like Revolutionary Road in a feature-length film, no matter how long those two hours feel. Richard Yates was not an emotionally subtle writer, and yet he was able to implicate his readers in whatever judgment he passed on his characters. Revolutionary Road works through the inculcation of false hope, again and again. We're repeatedly told that things are going to get better for the Wheelers; we're promised, or we think we've been promised, emotional and artistic breakthroughs. And in these hopes—these feverish wee-hour plans and pledges—we see our own hopes, our own insistent belief in personal progress, squelched. The movie replaces character with plot, and the result lands with a wet flop. It tells the story of Revolutionary Road and makes us see how thin the plot is: Self-identified creative souls must escape suburbia; maybe Paris would be nice; pregnancy is an unwelcome surprise. With the constant emphasis on what happens next, the audience is reduced to being spectators of fights and sex, dreams and dissolution. Interesting stuff, maybe, but it's their stuff, not ours. We'll never know these people; they're not us. This is what the movies do to literature, typically: There's so much plot to get in that there's no time to tell the story... http://www.slate.com/id/2211410/?GT1=38001

Not part of the OP here, but just btw: Saw Revolutionary Road last night, and almost walked out. And I will sit through anything. Supporting parts were written, cast & played beautifully. But the storyline & writing for Leo & Kate seldom rose above a confused turbid mess, far as I could see. Puerile content, no dramatic movement forward, no sense of the era in the dialog (unlike, say, Far from Heaven or what Mad Men manages every week), screaming overacting by Leo, cheap deux ex machina resolution in Kate's final action... Ansen, Denby, Ebert & that crowd seemed to love it. Whatever they were smoking, I would like some.

Coop, interesting thoughts. I grew up in a Protestant household, so no experience with the mechanics of the confessional. But it never occurred to me that priests might take notes or keep tallies, as this suggests.

Very cool site for anyone with a hankering to go back to college without leaving the house: http://academicearth.org/ I was put onto it by this review in Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2211591/

Could not help thinking...

Foot-fashion sin is one the Holy Father need not confess!

Hmm... Two sexes 'sin in different ways' Women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful, according to a Vatican report which states that the two sexes sin differently. A Catholic survey found that the most common sin for women was pride, while for men, the urge for food was only surpassed by the urge for sex. The report was based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar. Men 1. Lust 2. Gluttony 3. Sloth 4. Anger 5. Pride 6. Envy 7. Greed Women 1. Pride 2. Envy 3. Anger 4. Lust 5. Gluttony 6. Avarice 7. Sloth The Pope's personal theologian backed up the report in the Vatican newspaper. "Men and women sin in different ways," Msgr Wojciech Giertych, theologian to the papal household, wrote in L'Osservatore Romano. "When you look at vices from the point of view of the difficulties they create you find that men experiment in a different way from women." Msgr Giertych said the most difficult sin for men to face was lust, followed by gluttony, sloth, anger, pride, envy and greed. For women, the most dangerous sins were pride, envy, anger, lust, and sloth, he added. Secretive department Catholics are supposed to confess their sins to a priest at least once a year. The priest absolves them in God's name. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell". Traditionally, the seven deadly sins were considered: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. The Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the Vatican's most secretive departments, which fixes the punishments and indulgences handed down to sinners, last year updated its list of deadly sins to include more modern ones. The revised list included seven modern sins it said were becoming prevalent during an era of "unstoppable globalisation". These included: genetic modification, experiments on the person, environmental pollution, taking or selling illegal drugs, social injustice, causing poverty and financial greed. The report came amid Vatican concerns about the declining rate of confessions. A recent survey of Catholics found nearly a third no longer considered confession necessary, while one in 10 considered the process an obstacle to their dialogue with God. Pope Benedict, who reportedly confesses his sins once a week, last year issued his own voice of disquiet on the subject. "We are losing the notion of sin," he said. "If people do not confess regularly, they risk slowing their spiritual rhythm." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7897034.stm?lss

Would have been the better for it. Agree that Streep now gets treated as an icon no matter how ordinary the performance. Also hold with those who just did not see that much in Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance this time around. Just found the whole thing infinitely tiresome.

Har. My defensiveness comes of growing up parented by the Campbell's Soup generation, those legions of postwar housewives brainwashed or nearly by General Foods, General Mills et al. into seeing canned & packaged foods as not just more convenient but even tastier & more nutritious than the real thing. Driven by the food conglomerates' requirement after 1945 to find something to do with their suddenly unneeded K-ration production capacity. (It strikes me that I pulled the phrase above from a hilarious reversal in H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," where the narrator finds himself stranded overnight in a decaying Massachusetts North Shore town where the townspeople are a strange, repellent breed that almost (!) seem to have somehow gotten fish DNA into their makeup... ...Since the grocery was closed, I was forced to patronise the restaurant I had shunned before; a stooped, narrow-headed man with staring, unwinking eyes, and a flat-nosed wench with unbelievably thick, clumsy hands being in attendance. The service was all of the counter type, and it relieved me to find that much was evidently served from cans and packages. A bowl of vegetable soup with crackers was enough for me, and I soon headed back for my cheerless room at the Gilman; getting an evening paper and a fly-specked magazine from the evil-visaged clerk at the rickety stand beside his desk... http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/li...as/shadowin.htm) Furthering my envy of your general situation.

One has to eat. And eating well is the cornerstone of living well. The best of the best revenge. Without question. Lemme balance my praise of premade frozen meatballs. My favorite thing, driven by my & my S.O.'s typical schedules of getting home from the mills at 8pm, was training myself in making something vunnerful from scratch in 30 minutes. Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet was just the conceptual tip-off; sautes, high-temp roasting, all kinds of ways to execute great food in a flash. And no question -- eating well in one's own environment can outdo all but maybe 4 or 5 restaurant evenings I've ever sat through.

That was no lady. (Lord, forgive me.) ...This looks too exquisite. I must try to get the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine to stage it. http://www.ogunquitplayhouse.org/ Their recurring star, the redoubtable Sally Struthers, would be perfect.

Startlingly good, too. I tried the meatballs in the hot-food line, expecting nothing, and ended up taking home 3 bags of the frozen ones. Credible to serve even beyond the immediate family obligated to eat one's cooking. Unfortunately, or maybe not, Ikea in Boston is for me a 45-minute hike to a far-south suburb. Even longer on weekends, when traffic to the store can stretch the drive to an hour+.

And your point is...? I stand by my question above.

Who you calling weird?

And now for something completely pointless... http://www.tmz.com/2009/02/13/florence-hen...he-brady-bulge/ ...but then she has never shied from the nether regions... SNL, Season 25, Episode 20 Leon Phelps: I'm Leon Phelps, and welcome to "The Ladies' Man", the loveline with all the right responses to your romantic queries. How y'all doin'? That is good. I'm doin' fine, I got my bottle of Couversier right here. Hey, you know what? I am in a very relaxed mood, for, you, see soon the moist days of summer will be upon us. And you know what that means, don't you? It means that I, Leon Phelps, will be needing to choose a new summertime skank. Now, I have narrowed my choices down to three very charming, very talented, very skanky individuals.. and tonight, we are gonna play "Who Wants To Be My Skank?" ( walks over to the set ) Alright, then. So let's meet the contestant. Contestant #1 is a bus station skank. She makes her living by selling her underwear to perverts on the Internet. Say hello to Brandy Lane. Brandy Lane: ( walks out and sits ) Hi, Leon! Leon Phelps: What is hapenin', Brandy? Skanktestant #2 hails from Gary, Indiana. She is currently unemployed, but is living comfortably off a settlement she won for a leaky boob implant. Say hello to Wilma Slotsin. Wilma Slotsin: ( walks out and sits ) Hey, Leon. Leon Phelps: Hey, hello there, Miss Slotsin! And last, but not least, contestant #3 is the host of a very popular morning show here on NBC called "Later Today". Please welcome Florence Henderson. Florence Henderson: ( walks out and sits ) Leon, it is so nice to see you again! Leon Phelps: It is so nice to see you, too, Flossie baby! So, ladies, are you ready to skank it up? ( the three skanks cheer wildly ) Florence Henderson: Let's get skanky! Leon Phelps: Yeah! Okay, Skank #1: "If you were an article of clothing, what would you be?" Brandy Lane: Well, Leon, I'm very warm, and very giving, and very open.. so I'd probably be a pair of crotchless panties! Leon Phelps: ( near tears ) That is so beautiful! Skank #2: "What kind of clothing would you be" Wilma Slotsin: Well.. I'd probably be an old sneaker, because I don't mind being tied up, and I smell rank! Leon Phelps: Ooohhhh! That is skanky! Okay, next question, Skank #3. I think it is important to think about your future, so let me ask you this: "How skanky do you think you will be in five years?" Florence Henderson: Oh, very skanky! When the world sees what I can really do with a bottle of Wesson Oil, well.. You know what, Leon? I'm gonna be able to outskank Carmen Electra! Leon Phelps: Ooh, Miss Wessonality! That is very good. Now, Skank #2: "If you could do one thing to make this a better world, what would you do?" Wilma Slotsin: Well.. it has always been my dream to wipe out all of the world's diseases.. but I think that I should focus mainly on the ones that itch my crotch. Leon Phelps: Yea-heh! Listen, I'm very sorry about giving you that. Florence Henderson: Oh, actually, Leon, I should apologize - I gave it to you first. Leon Phelps: Listen, no apologies necessary, Flo-ho. It was worth it! Now, here's one for all of you: "Where is the most unusual place you have ever whoopie?" Skank #1? Brandy Lane: Hmm.. that would be in the butt.. ler's pantry.. of the Playboy Mansion! Leon Phelps: Intriguing, yeah! Skank #2? Wilma Slotsin: Well.. I did it once in the ass.. pen, Colorado bus station. Leon Phelps: That is fabulous, yeah! Skank #3: "What is the most unusual place that you have ever done it?" Florence Henderson: ( laughing ) That's easy, Leon.. right down the old Hershey Highway! Yeah, just outside of Hershey, Pennsylvania! ( Winner's Bell rings ) Leon Phelps: I think we have a winner! Skank #3, I am very impressed! How about a big hand for all of our skanks, everybody? Isn't that lovely? Well, that is all the time we have for "Who Wants To Be My Skank?" Ladies? All: ( blow a kiss to the audience ) "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!" http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/99tladiesman.phtml

My behavioral-biologist friend likes to remind that human genetics are closer to chimpanzees than bonobos. Thus given the choice, we usually pick tribal warfare over rubbing genitals with one another. http://www.primates.com/bonobos/bonobos-sexual.html

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall. I've scraped, but cannot get her off at all. -- Punctured Poems, Richard Armour

That doesn't happen to most people as a matter of routine? Possibly I should renounce blasphemy-as-policy.

I am with Greg on this one. Small guys have torn me a new one just as much as huge guys. And the small guys I can keep working away inside me all night long, which is its own kind of ultimate something.

Proving the point. Yahweh was ever dissatisfied with his own best efforts, never mind those of his createds. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/books/review/27rosen.html http://www.radioopensource.org/harold-bloo...sus-and-yahweh/