1) Collect Underwear; 2) ? 3) Make profit

One of my favorite South Park episodes is about the Underwear Gnomes.  It is also about Rob Reiner as a prototype of Mayor Bloomberg, going around trying to force people to stop smoking, and that's a funny plot, but the subplot is funnier.

How to Speak German (for anglophones)*

(*people who speak English, not angels on phones or people who only use their phone when they are inside a triangle.)

Speaking German is, indeed,  particularly easy if you can speak or read English, in part because if you didn't, you wouldn't have been able to understood anything I've written so far.  We could even make horrible fun of you if we wanted. Nya, nya, silly non English speaker.

So now that we've got past that, how does one speak German?  It is very easy.  There are 3 easy steps:

1)  Speak English, except with a German accent.

Don't know a German accent?  Search Hulu for old episodes of "Hogan's Heroes".    Listen to David Hasselhoff  or Heino (only for educational purposes, of course.).  Watch "Wings of Desire" or "Das Boot" in the original German.  Download a German pop mp3 from the 80s, the only decade in the history of Germany during which American youth listened to German pop music (Look for names like Nena, Kraftwerk, Peter Schilling, usw.  (usw is German for etc).  )

If you mention you are looking for examples of German accents and people tell you about videos of a funny looking little man with a mustache who made speaches to large throngs of people and says "den Deutschen Voelk" a lot, DO NOT LISTEN TO WHAT THIS MAN SAYS.  First of all, he was Austrian and had a very silly Austrian accent.  Second of all, his grammar was at best questionable.  Thirdly, he was a vegan and we all know what kind of havoc the vegans cause when left to their own devices.  You don't want to go there.  Trust me.

2)  Pronounce everything.  For instance, pronounce Fahrvergnuegen "Fahr-fair-g[hard g]-new-g[hard g]-en," not Fahrferngully or something like that.

3) Put all verbs at the end of the sentence.  Or, if you are reading aloud, "All Ferbs at ze end of ze Sentence pootten!"

Now you are ready to speak German!

Would you like to learn to speak French?  It's easy.

Just don't pronounce ANYTHING.

Tax Dirge, or What I Did on My Payroll Tax Vacation

Each year I put together a song mix that gives me solace and a chance for catharsis as I do my taxes.  Here is the story of this years' list.

At the end of 2012, we were informed our “payroll tax holiday” was coming to an end.  What payroll tax holiday?  I didn’t know we were on a holiday, did you?  Well, then our first paychecks of the new year came around, and it became obvious that, if we weren’t on holiday before, it sure was over now.

Still, as I pull all my receipts and forms together, planning my little trip to a village near Pinckney with all of them to get “TAXES FROM HELL!” stamped on the envelope, I fondly remember those days last year when I got paid a little bit more.  And then I remember that that means I’m paying more in taxes, so it doesn’t matter.

Regardless this year I’m presenting a tax dirge that reflects that sentiment.  Listen to these songs as you work through that ritual that all working Americans share, and if you get too depressed, just remember:  the Canadians will have to do the same damn thing in May, and their taxes are higher.

How to read music?

This is sort of a continuation of my rant against what is called "Praise and Worship" music in the Christian world.  It is called "Praise and Worship" music, but it doesn't sound like that; it can sound like a couple of hamsters singing Dave Clark Five oldies, it can sound like elderly hippies reliving their Newport Festival days (post electric, of course), it can sound like someone scratching their fingers on a chalk board, but it has never sounded like praise and worship music, or any kind of music, to me.

And as I have said before, I have nothing against pop music.  If Beyonce songs or Barbra Streisand songs or especially Ramones songs were being sung by "worshippers" who had some talent, that might be fun!  And if the words of those were changed into something that is meaningful to Christians, great!

Nor am I suggesting that "Praise and Worship" ers lack talent.  I see their talent whenever they let the odd hymn slip into their repertoire. I've heard singers who can belt it out like Marian Anderson and I've heard guitarists accompany a funky version of "Jesus Loves Me" that rivals not onnly Phil Keaggy, but Eric Clapton segue into a piece that recalls all the spiritual oomph of a spoonful of Splenda.   I just don't like the songs. The melodies are predictible, the lyrics inane and repetitive.  Bob Franke, a folk songwriter who is a Christian (as opposed to a Christian folk-song writer) coined a phrase, "Jesus-is-my-girlfriend music."  Yup, that's what it sounds like.  A bunch of metrosexual young men and a few bubbly, smiley young women singing "Lord I love you, i just love you, Lord I love you, I just love you....."

And even though the melodies are hopelessly predictible (I've never had trouble singing songs with the band whihch I'd never heard before, I guess where the next note is and there it is!), no one sings them.  No one sings them because they don't know them if they're over 30, and no one besides me is foolish enough to risk singing the wrong note.  Even though most churches have some way of "teaching" the songs (which involves Power Point, an overly enthusiastic "praise and worship leader", and featuring the same song weekly for awhile), people don't learn it.  You will never here a great congregation spontaneously erupt in a chorus of "Blessed Be Your Name" the same way they will sing "Christ the Lord Has Risen Today" or "How Great Thou Art."  Now, maybe that's because people over thirty often grew up hearing the older songs every Sunday morning.  But there was one huge difference:  they had hymnals.

Hymnals are very handy.  If you've never seen one before, think of a book with a bunch of tunes written into it.  Not just the words, not just the letters of the guitar chords, but the tunes.  On what is called staff paper.

Oh, you say, I grew up in church that sang hymns, and I never learn to read music.  Yes you did.  It's not all that hard.  When you were standing by grandma and looking at the words and notes to "Nearer My God to Thee", and you weren't quite familiar with it, it soon became obvious that as the notes got higher on the page, so did grandma's voice.  I was lucky enough to have a grandma who sang alto, and if I sat between her and my mom, I could see that her voice sometimes went down when mom's went up....and that the top notes (moms) and second to the top notes (grandma's) corresponded.   I'm not saying that you could have gotten up in front of an audience at Carnegie hall and tried to sight read a new song, I'm just saying that  the business of hymn singing, which often involves picking up that hymnal book thingy and looking on as you or the next person sings, exposes us to the fundamentals of reading music. When you combine the act of listening to a melody, one that might be quite unpredictable and therefore more memorable, with those fundamentals, it's a lot easier to learn how to sing hymns.

More importantly, Praise and Worship music doesn't do that, and until it does, I think it is doomed to be music that is performed for an audience rather than something a congregation sings together.  

When did Bonhoeffer know? and how?

I'm not going to say anything in particular about the recent mass shooting that everyone else is talking about in the last month, except to say I don't know what needs to happen to prevent things like this from happening.  In fact, I don't know how we'd know if such a tragedy was prevented.

Statist culture, and in particular, liberal culture, can defy logic.  But to really reach the heights of nonsense, it takes a union.  And the politicians indebted to unions.

The Evil of Compromise

Just came back from viewing Spielberg's "Lincoln".

Intolerable Tolerance

I can't remember where I first heard the word tolerance, but it played a big role in my childhood.

Words Mean Something

In my  role as a social worker at a medical teaching facility, in a psychiatric department, I've witnessed, written, and read a lot of petitions.  Petitions in Michigan are the initial paperwork needed to hospitalize someone involuntarily.  They're pretty serious stuff.  The petition itself, which anyone can fill out, doesn't take away a person's rights; for that,  two physicians, one of whom must be a psychiatrist, must compete a certificate saying that they agree the patient needs to be hospitalized against his will.

Mandatory Denouncing? The politics of CPS

Bad Quaker (or as Michael Deene likes to refer to him, Ben Quaker) is doing a superb podcast series on protecting children in a free society. Building on the premises that 1) we have no free society, at least in the US and 2) putting them in the "system" which includes the police, the courts, and Child Protective Services does not help kids and it especially doesn't help families.

I have my differences with Ben, which I've already addressed in a comment on his blog.  But CPS has been coming up in all sorts of coversations around me lately, so I figured it's time to do a blog post.

Let me first establish my street cred with regard to CPS, at least CPS in my own state.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Greedy

My mom is visiting from out of town.  We were watching a program about really expensive homes earlier.  well, she was watching it.  I was mostly listening to it and mopping my kitchen floor.

I didn't see what she remarked on when she said, "Shame on them, spending so much money on a room when there are children starving."

I'm just learning about....democracy #1: Democracy is bad, m'kay?

Because I often find myself thinking these days  about things that I may change my mind about later, I've decided to do a series of "I'm just learning about" blogs.  As I've stated elsewhere, this blog contains much of my mental processes as I consider ideas put forth in libertarianism and anarchocapitalism...the latter of which I had never heard of a little over a year ago.

So this first one is about democracy.

How to Pass Your Mental Status Exam

I've heard a rumor that Amazon is going to nix its So you 'd like to.... lists.  Therefore, I've decided to preserve mine here.

This is a list I made about 9 years ago (!!).  I updated the "Presidents" book selection so that, if you read it and go to a mental status exam, the examiner won't think that you think it's 2007; but I have yet to put working links in it.  Briefly, I copied the whole darn thing into Word, then made pictures out of it with Paint, and then uploaded them here, so, sorry.

New Beginnings, Sad Endings

In December of 1990, I was graduating from UM in a state facing hospital closings, agency closings, and not very many job openings for social worker.  Despite everyone telling me from day one not to expect my internship at Riverview (Ambulatory Psychiatry) to turn into a "real job", I still felt a pang of disappointment when someone didn't say, "Normally, we wouldn't hire an intern at this time, but for YOU, Kelly....."  Oh the grandiosity of youth.

The Queen of Michigan and Thought Crime

Yesterday at work, I was privileged to be able to sit with someone in their grief.

The means justify the ends?

In history courses in the late 20th century, we often heard the words "the ends justify the means" to color the perpetrators of the that era's worst crimes.  The quote attributed to Stalin, "You have to break some eggs to make an omelet" comes to mind, for example.  A similar mindset was discernible in the actions of 1960s terrorists:  the Weathermen, the Manson Family, etc.  So what if we're murdering people and trying to blow up buildings?  It will all lead to peace and harmony and socialism eventually.

 In my post "activism" days, I have been observing the way they (and me, in the past) held so close to their chests the conviction that even if  the  implementation of their idealistic plans ended up a disaster, no one should suggest that their plans were wrong.  It's a literary opposite, but with consequences that could be just as dire, of "the ends justify the means":  "the means justify the ends!"

Ode to the Birds Who, Until Yesterday, Were Thriving Atop My Exterior Light

(Disclaimer:  this post has nothing to do with anarchocapitalism, libertarianism, or why it's useless to vote this November for president even if you're not an anarchist.  Sometimes, I just has to writes.)

The nest was empty.

I had heard a crow caw, and thought, oh my God, the babies.

Congratulations! You bought gold!!!

Yes, that's right!  Now that the nuclear, post-rapture, post Mayan calender, or global warming apocolypse is here, aren't you glad you invested your life savings in  precious metal?  Not for you the volatile mutual funds market, or insecure stocks; now that there isn't an operating government on the globe, you can hold your head up high knowing you didn't put all your eggs in national currencies or government bonds. No, sir or ma'am!  You planned well!  You win the prepper sweepstakes!  Like your neighbors,  you built a fallout shelter, stocked it with the Alex Jones recommended Vita-Life freeze dried foods which all taste like the brown sauce in frozen Chinese food,  in space-saving little ziplock bags.  You stocked a lot of water.  You learned how to rig garbage bags to a wooden seat to replace your toilet.  You have an emergency radio which only runs for three minutes if you turn  the crank for fifteen minutes...but, oh well, it's not picking up anything yet, anyway (surely all the ham radio operators are waiting till the fallout/flooding from the melted icecaps/Mayan dancing men subside(s) to start creating the new post-world radio network).

Verifying facts with Beatlology techniques

In a world where the media manipulates the truth, or purposefully lie, it is hard to get the facts straight in any given case.

I've personally got my facts outside of the MSM for about 5 years now. I don't have cable tv, I don't usually listen to the radio news. I do check in on a lot of blogs. I listen to the talk show hosts with whom I agree for the most part. But I still think I can correctly refer to myself as well-informed.

If I'm reading a right leaning blog, say, National Review Online or Mark Steyn, I don't take their word for anything they say, but I don't dismiss them. If I find an article interesting, I start trying to walk through the issues presented, backwards. Which means, for example, if the author asserts that the president made a speech in 2010 vowing to cover all Republicans in shellac, I start googling "Obama speech cover Republicans shellac 2010" and glance at what comes up. If one looks like it may refute the blog's claim I am usually drawn initially to that, and if it does, that's great. Blogger 2 says "That goofy blogger 1! Hey doofus, he did mention shellac, but he said HE was shellacked!". Now I feel I'm getting somewhere. Two sources say "shellac" was definitely in a speech Obama made in 2010. Maybe there's a youtube video of Obama making the speech, just where he says "we really got a shellacking.".But that's the whole clip. And I'm not done because I need to know in what context this is being said.

So what am I looking for? What Obama says he said, maybe in a statement he makes about the speech?

"Buy US or Else" bumper sticker = Nice life there, wouldn't want anything to 'APPEN to it, would we?

Living in the eastern part of Michigan, I see a lot of bumper stickers advising me that I am one of many, or perhaps all, types of bad people unless whenever I buy a car it is "made in the US."  That's been true throughout my life, and in the past I would just ignore it.  My father worked at Fords, and his take on it was that many of the big three ran factories in multiple countries and if you bought a Ford it was likely to say "hecho en Mexico" or "fabrique au Canada" on it.  I found out he was right: I've owned 2 new and 2 slightly used Fords; of them, one was made in Mexico and one in Canada.  Conversely, at that time (late 80s, early 90s) Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi employed a lot of Americans....which is important to know because of course the "buy American" crowd sincerely believe that if you buy a car made by a foreign company, you are personally responsible  for the high unemployment rate.  But since the Japanese companies employ a lot of Americans, if you buy a Honda Civic or whatever, you will help them maintain their jobs.