Death on High

Falling into the category "I-have-no-category-for-this-oddness," it appears that "six feet under" may soon be a quite inappropriate description of some final resting places.

Though it looks like something out of Perdido Street Station, it's really a skyscraping extension to the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, "a vertical cemetery established in Santos in Brazil in 1983."

This futuristic, insectile extension "will create another 25,000 niches, set inside a 108-metre-high tower block that will complete the complex."

It will be circled by birds, looming alien on the horizon.

Further reading on this truly odd tower reveals that "vertical cemeteries" already exist around the globe. To continue this adventure, continue reading and see other cooler pictures at BLDGBLOG.

Hail to Heinie

"All Hail to Alma Mater
To thy glory we sing;
All Hail to Southern California
Loud let thy praises ring;
Where Western sky meets Western sea
Our college stands in majesty;
Sing our love to Alma Mater,
Hail, all hail to thee!"

So go the words to USC's alma mater, "All Hail." I just thought I'd preface this action by a member of the men's hockey team. Majesty, indeed.

I would just like to note that the headline indicates (if you click through) that an investigation is being launched. An investigation? Into what? Whether or not the man actually has a rear end?

Working Man

As part of internet research for work, I stumbled across this:

Crack kills.

Yes, it does.

Yes or No?

I'm all about one-liners tonight, so I'll make this two.

You've gotta watch this. It'll make no sense (it's a deposition video), but watch it to the end regardless.

Courtesy of Prof. Brainbridge.

What on earth...

Prepare to waste time.

Not So Happy

Unlike me, Bluejake is not thrilled with life.

Curious Word: Megillah

Another classic from Prof. U. In class, he dropped the phrase, "the whole megillah." Our blank stares were enough to convince him to explain that it meant something akin to "the whole enchilada" in Yiddish. But Richard had a better explanation, which I also found here.

It’s the Hebrew word for a scroll. In particular, it refers to one of five books of the Old Testament, namely Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which are read on certain Jewish special days. The most common reference, though, is to the Book of Esther, which is read in its entirety at the feast of Purim.

Though the feast day is a joyous one, the story wanders at great length through vast amounts of detail and it can be a bit of a trial to sit through it all. So it isn’t surprising that the whole Megillah (in the Yiddish from which American English borrowed it, gantse Megillah) came to be a wry term for an overly extended explanation or story, or for something tediously complicated, or an involved situation or state of affairs.

The original scrolls were apparently quite heavy, leading Richard to suggest you'd need a Megillah Gorilla to hold them aloft.

Money.

"That's nihilism!"

Such is a phrase one of my professors likes to employ to describe...well, just about anything. He, and you, will appreciate this transformation of the funnies:

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Plato, TCS, and More

A trio of interesting articles from TCS Daily:

Plato's Republic or Milton Friedman's Market?

Sounds intriguing, no? Well, it's a little disappointing. Kling does belabor this comparison. But it's a quick, reasonable read.


Fantasy Island:

SAINT HELENA, UK (SatireNewsService) -- Tyrants exiled to this rocky south Atlantic island do not simply retire with terrified members of their retinue and large portions of their vast, ill-gotten gains. Rather they enjoy their golden years by playing United Nations sponsored, on-line games that simulate the lives they wanted to live in their third-world hell-holes.

The U.N.'s Saint Helena International Tyrants project is known as "The Project" due to its unfortunate acronym. It was created following the recent reorientation of the U.N.'s mission from the support of dictatorial governments and the advancement of human oppression and misery to the pursuit of projects and actions that advance human rights and democratic governance.

I admit it. My satire-meter is off today, and I actually believed this for several paragraphs.

And, finally, the best and most worthwhile of the lot, authored by Prof. Bainbridge...

Cafeteria Catholicism and the Minimum Wage:

When liberal Catholic politicians support abortion rights, conservatives are quick to accuse them of being cafeteria Catholics. When conservative Catholic politicians oppose increasing the minimum wage, liberals are quick to hurl the same accusation.

The metaphor is an apt one. Many Catholics stroll past the array of teachings offered by the Church, choosing to obey those that appeal to them personally and rejecting those that do not. Unfortunately for cafeteria Catholics, however, the Church makes clear that the cafeteria approach is not an authentic form of Catholicism. To the contrary, the faithful "have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church." (Catechism ¶ 2037.)

Yes, this article is definitely worth a read. Over my few years on this earth, I've been struck repeatedly by the willingness of Catholics to pick and choose the elements of the religion they find appealing and leave the rest behind. It's a mild form of the "personal spirituality" that most of my college classmates ascribed to. In their case, the buffet includes any and all world religions, so their religious potpurri can have some exotic aromas.

The very same person who abides by this approach (Catholic or otherwise) tends to be willing to adhere to the rules of a dietician religiously or follow doctor's orders to a tee. In all things but religion/spiritual life, such people are willing to abandon all judgment and rely on experts. But pose the tough questions ("How does one determine right and wrong?" "What is my purpose in life?" "Should I really give up my wool mittens because some poor sheep got a haircut to make them?) and there is no authority on God's green earth that can help them. They prefer to wrestle with these issues alone.

The results are no more surprising than the family that refuses to vaccinate its children or relies exclusively on homeopathic remedies for diseases. One's spirit will decline in health just as one's body would.

This, however, isn't the issue that Bainbridge is addressing. He's concerned with this question:

How do we distinguish between those areas in which faithful Catholics may properly disagree with pronouncements by the Pope or a bishop and those as to which faithful Catholics must give their assent even if their personal judgment is to the contrary?

An excellent question and one which I'll let him answer. Read on.

P.S. The comments attached to the article are hilarious and mind-numbing. Classic forum-nerd battle-posting.

Movie Times: Seraphim Falls

I refuse to issue a spoiler alert for this movie. Let me put it this way: if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in a theater when this movie is playing, wait for the right moment to club the man with a gun who is forcing you to watch it. If he shoots you, you've lost nothing: the movie would have killed you anyway.

Seraphim Falls is the worst movie I've seen since Babel. It also happens to be the only movie I've seen since Babel, so perhaps a better explanation would be necessary. I have to assume that only intelligent people are reading this (yes, all four of you...three? Maybe?) and as a consequence, I can also assume you will not see this movie, unless you have a perverse interest in feeling your eyeballs try to pop out of your head and run down the aisle. So, I'll give it to you in brief.

Here's the deal...the movie starts out good.

No, I'm not kidding, it actually starts out real darn good. Yeah, and so did Anakin, tell me something I don't know. Seriously, though, this movie looked like a keeper, set in 1860-something, all about a chase of an ex-Union officer (Pierce Brosnan) by some dude (Liam Neeson) who wanted revenge. But let's break it down.

Strengths:
a) It's cryptic. You haven't a clue what the hell is going on, but Pierce Brosnan is being chased by bad guys after getting shot. It's like a realistic Bond movie. For instance, ol' fatso Brosnan tries to shimmy on a log across a raging river (albeit with one arm hurting from a bullet wound), loses balance like a past-his-prime movie star would, and falls in. He goes over the waterfall (not Seraphim Falls, mind you, but the incredibly overt symbolism gets worse later), but survives. How? Well, as any idiot who got shoved off a college high dive can tell you (read: me), falling thirty feet will hurt the soles of your feet...or give you a mean bellyflop, but it won't kill you. So, surprise! Brozzie lives.
b) It masquerades as realistic. I admit, (a) was real long. But the movie is realistic. After the Broz gets soaked, he has to start a fire to avoid hypothermia (snow lies all around in the forest). He accomplishes this while shivering like William Tell's son. Then, he takes off his shirt and digs the bullet out of his arm using his bowie knife. He is not happy about this. Who the hell would be? Instead, he makes noises you haven't heard since you tried to wrestle that greased pig and he kicked you in the gonads. Finally, he sears the wound shut by heating his knife in the fire and taking an iron to the gory flesh. Sweeeeeet. Oh, and he is in pain. Like these guys, after their first major battle.

So, I'm on board. In the extended opening sequence, there's almost no talking (bonus for PB, who still, um, sounds like Bond...in a bad way), a dude gets a knife dropped through his skull, and grown men cry...a lot. So, we're cool.

But then it goes to hell.

The realism of the movie drops faster than a feather in a vacuum (hrm...), and the jump the-, I mean, the "hey, this movie is worse than the movies Elmer Bernstein scored in the 1950s" moment came when Pierce Brosnan escapes Liam Neeson, who is holding a rifle on him, standing five feet away, by simply grunting and running off screen left.

It only gets worse. For hours, they ride along, with Brosnan somehow evading capture and killing people awesomely with his knife (the only bright moments). By the end, though, Anjelica Huston has showed up as some metaphor for something and somehow Brosnan shoots Neeson, but they both survive and walk away into the middle of a desert and disappear.

No, you're not missing anything. It's that retarded. Throw in a highly symbolic Mormon knock-off group, sage old Indian, and you've got yourselves a terrible movie. Throw in Ms. Huston in a garment that attempts to force her aging bosom into her face and you've got yourself a throat-slitter. Just remember to slit the throat of the person next to you first, unless they're incapacitated by how bad this movie is.

The cinema...what hell.

Whoa Nelly...

Times like this, I'm glad not to be in college anymore. Sometime, I'll tell you why there are no doors on the stalls in the bathrooms in the bottom of Taper Hall. Then, I'll write a sentence that has seventeen consecutive prepositional phrases.

BusTales: I

New feature here at The DTrav: BusTales. Just riding the bus has been sufficiently ridiculous to merit a descriptor of its own. Now, I know what you're thinking...what happened to those "regular features" introduced months ago? To that I say, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And frankly, I have some great times in the past (I think), and I'd love to live them again.

Regardless, BusTales it is, with the first burst coming at you...now!

Two days ago, I missed the bus I was aiming for. Then, I gave the rifle to my little brother and he hit it, setting off a chain of events that would culminate in my death and the making of one of the worst movies in American cinema history (a close second to Manos: Hands of Fate, which at least was decently mocked by these guys), featuring, among other things, a deaf Japanese chick who constantly exposes herself for no apparent reason. Oops, that's the plot summary for Babel, a movie you need to see like Maria Shriver (aka "Skeletor") needs more plastic surgery.

Seriously, though, you shouldn't see Babel.

Even more seriously, I did miss my bus two days ago. I was shooting to get on the 7:15, but let's be serious. That means I was already an hour late. Rabadash! Join me in my attempt to get C.S. Lewis characters to double as exclamations of frustration). So, having to take the 7:35 was no worse spilling teriyaki sauce on an open cut...it's salty, but not pure salt.

Thank heaven I did miss my bus, however. Halfway through the trek, we came up on the 7:15, with its former riders clustered outside. As they piled aboard to make our bus a merry madhouse of metro mavens, a young lady with a stentorian bent recounted the adventure. If I was a clever writer, I would reproduce her urban accent and those unique phrases springing from her roots that peppered her telling. Not being half so clever, I fear I would come across as awkward and mostly racist, so I'll forbear.

In short, it went down like this--or, rather, this is how it came up. The contents of one man's stomach, that is. Yes, violent nausea of the explosive kind overcame one of the occupants of the ill-fated 7:15, provoking a geyser that would have brought out the crow's nest jack in all of us ("Thar she blows!"). The poor (besotted) soul couldn't stop himself and they all musta cussed cuz the bus had a musk of bile. Miraculously, no one got in the line of fire, but I doubt somehow that I would have been so lucky.

Today, I judiciously slept through my alarms.

~~~

Coming up soon, "Drinking on the Bus: Who Does It and Why?"

El Profesor

Fun phrases emanating from the professor in class today.

Saint Vitus Dance:

A comedian at Rome, martyred under Diocletian in 286 or 303. Feast, 25 August. He is invoked against epilepsy, and is honoured as patron of theatrical performers and of musicians. The legend (Acta SS., Aug., V, 119) relates: Genesius, the leader of a theatrical troupe in Rome, performing one day before the Emperor Diocletian, and wishing to expose Christian rites to the ridicule of his audience, pretended to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. When the water had been poured upon him he proclaimed himself a Christian. Diocletian at first enjoyed the realistic play, but, finding Genesius to be in earnest, ordered him to be tortured and then beheaded. He was buried on the Via Tiburtina. His relics are said to be partly in San Giovanni della Pigna, partly in S. Susanna di Termini and in the chapel of St. Lawrence. The legend was dramatized in the fifteenth century; embodied in later years in the oratorio "Polus Atella" of Löwe (d. 1869), and still more recently in a work by Weingartner (Berlinn 1892).

The relevance to our class? None. There is another definition of the term, one more applicable to what the professor what trying to convey, namely the awkward and often violent dance that both the legislative and the executive branch partake in. As always, the Wikigod provides:

Chorea sancti viti (Latin for "St. Vitus' dance") is an abnormal involuntary movement disorder, one of a group of neurological disorders called dyskinesias. The term chorea is derived from a Greek word khoreia (a kind of dance, see chorea), as the quick movements of the feet or hands are vaguely comparable to dancing or piano playing.

So, apparently, the two branches of government don't get along too well. Of course, if this is normal, I would hate to see what things would like if they were butting heads.

"Vaunting ambition": It's a great phrase and one that doesn't need a lot of explanation. Obviously, someone with a lot of ambition, someone driven, someone aiming to climb the ladders of power would be described by this pair of words. But "vaunting"? Not the most common adjective. Here's a little background:

1.	having a boastfully proud disposition: a vaunting dictator.

2.	marked by boastful pride: a vaunting air of superiority.

Ah, gee, thanks Dictionary.com. You're real swell!

The Hora: Okay, this actually came from R.S. (he hasn't given me permission to publish his name yet...well, I never asked, but you get the idea), but it merits a mention. While El P waxed eloquent about the "admixture of the legislative and the executive" it was up to Richard (oops, that cat is out of the bag) to remind Prof. U that sometimes the two avoid each other like the plauge, dancing in concentric and untouching circles.

But wait, everyone knows the Hora is just a wonderful dance of the Jewish people...why is this news? Ah, because it is not originally Jewish, grasshopper.

Hora is a Romanian (hora-singular; hore-plural), traditional circle folk dance which gathers all people present in a big closed circle. The dancers hold each other by hands and the circle turns on itself usually clockwise as each participant follows a sequence of taking three steps forward and one step back. The dance is usually accompanied by musical instruments such as the cymbalum, the accordion, the violin, the viola, the double bass, the saxophone, the trumpet or even the panflute.

Hora is popular during wedding celebrations, popular festivals, and it's an essential part of the social entertainment in rural areas. One of the most famous horas is the Hora Unirii, (Hora of the Union) which became a romanian patriotic song after being the hymn in 1859, when Wallachia and Moldavia united to form the Principality of Romania. During the 2007 New Year's Eve celebration, when Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union, people were dancing Hora Bucuriei (Hora of Joy) over the boulevards of Bucharest, as a tribute to The Ode to Joy European anthem. The hora was also danced by the Vlachs (Romanians) of Bulgaria, hence it has been introduced into the folklore of Bulgaria under the name of horo (singular), hora (plural). Some of the biggest hora circles can be found on early XXth century movies, taken by Manakia brothers in Pindus, and performed by local aromanian people.

So, you see, there are many things left to learn. Romanian dances among them.

Whoa, Mexico

You better hope that you don't have to rely on a cop to save your life in Tijuana. Or at least he better have real good aim.

Huzzah!

Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old Witch? The wicked Kiffich...

Okay, that was a stretch, but there is good news. Lane Kiffin is outta here. And, boy, does that make me happy.

Lane Kiffin grew up dreaming of becoming a head coach in the National Football League.

On Monday, the Oakland Raiders fulfilled that dream years before anyone other than Al Davis could have anticipated when they hired USC's 31-year-old offensive coordinator as the team's 16th head coach.

"I always thought a lot of things have to go right and work out, but if you continue to work hard and believe in yourself good things can happen," Kiffin said in a telephone interview.

I grew up dreaming for a decent playcaller for the Trojans, but that turned into a nightmare after Norm Chow departed. Okay, again, another exaggeration on my part, but Lane Kiffin and I are about as good friends as Noam Chomsky and John Candy (who actually bothers to click on these links, eh? I could put anything there). That's because John Candy's dead, but you get the idea.

In other news, this man really defies description. I guess I'm...amazed?