Well said. I'm fairly comfortably in "weasel" territory, and I don't bitch about it. Too much. Any more.

Actually, in all seriousness, while I am one of those cynical beaten-down types in terms of how much I care about corporate / management expectations, I do take pride in holding myself to rather higher standards than those external ones. That's a good thing, and it means that I can look myself in the mirror and honestly feel like I'm contributing something real, even if the machine that I'm in is apathetic, highly inefficient, and moderately pointless to begin with.

As (the great) Kurt Vonnegut said, "so it goes."

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Harrison Bergeron, Sean Astin, Christopher Plummer, Kurt Vonnegut, Beethoven, 1995' to 'Harrison Bergeron, Sean Astin, Christopher Plummer, Beethoven, 1995, electric shock' - edited by doogle

Twain is a great choice - definitely read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It's LOL funny. Some of my favorites among the American classics are Poe, Emerson, Washington Irving, Walt Whitman, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Gore Vidal (are those last two counted as classic yet?). Edgar Allen Poe is a must. I first read The Pit and the Pendulum in my 30s and it scared the shit out of me. He clearly had access to the best drugs available in the world at the time. Other top Poe choices - The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Tell-Tale Heart.
In reply to this comment by kymbos:
I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, which is a pretty good page turner.

I'm interested in reading some classic American literature if anyone would recommend some for a guy who has never really read any of the classics (like Mark Twain, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald).

I'm green.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Fox News' Nasty Obituary For Kurt Vonnegut. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

you're probably right... i made a longer list initially and realized it was entirely composed of writers. i couldn't decide if it's because those are the people i've paid the most attention to in my life or if its because the nature of success is so incredibly different for a writer than a ceo. >> ^dag:

Maybe it's only the inventors. Da Vinci, Edison and Jobs fit that bill. Deep thinkers and pure artists are pretty different. >> ^peggedbea:
I'm pretty sure kurt vonnegut was at least reasonably kind. He wrote so many books about the value of human kindness.
crispin glover is also unabashedly sensitive and kind and contains all the charm of someone who is not at all charming until they're speaking about something they love. i guess you could argue that he is not a genius, but then i would just tell you to attend a viewing for one of his insane art house films and stick around for the three hour Q&A he'll host when it's finished. genius.
oh i bet neil degrasse tyson is only slightly prickish, and only in the kindest most charming of ways.
>> ^dag:
Just as a thought experiment - can you name one who was well thought of as an all-around nice guy? Edison was an asshole. I've heard that Da Vinci was a real prick.>> ^quantumushroom:
But do geniuses need to be assholes?
No. No they don't.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Maybe it's only the inventors. Da Vinci, Edison and Jobs fit that bill. Deep thinkers and pure artists are pretty different. >> ^peggedbea:

I'm pretty sure kurt vonnegut was at least reasonably kind. He wrote so many books about the value of human kindness.
crispin glover is also unabashedly sensitive and kind and contains all the charm of someone who is not at all charming until they're speaking about something they love. i guess you could argue that he is not a genius, but then i would just tell you to attend a viewing for one of his insane art house films and stick around for the three hour Q&A he'll host when it's finished. genius.
oh i bet neil degrasse tyson is only slightly prickish, and only in the kindest most charming of ways.
>> ^dag:
Just as a thought experiment - can you name one who was well thought of as an all-around nice guy? Edison was an asshole. I've heard that Da Vinci was a real prick.>> ^quantumushroom:
But do geniuses need to be assholes?
No. No they don't.

I'm pretty sure kurt vonnegut was at least reasonably kind. He wrote so many books about the value of human kindness.

crispin glover is also unabashedly sensitive and kind and contains all the charm of someone who is not at all charming until they're speaking about something they love. i guess you could argue that he is not a genius, but then i would just tell you to attend a viewing for one of his insane art house films and stick around for the three hour Q&A he'll host when it's finished. genius.

oh i bet neil degrasse tyson is only slightly prickish, and only in the kindest most charming of ways.

>> ^dag:

Just as a thought experiment - can you name one who was well thought of as an all-around nice guy? Edison was an asshole. I've heard that Da Vinci was a real prick.>> ^quantumushroom:
But do geniuses need to be assholes?
No. No they don't.

This film is missing the dark wit and whimsy that makes Kurt Vonnegut so awesome. I'll have to pick this story up at the used *bookshop.

While I don't think public is better than homeschooling, this is lying with numbers, it's comparing apples to oranges.

Good school/test performance correlates very highly with high socio-economic status. If homeschooling is also an indicator of socio-economic status, as this data on parent education suggests, then you have a poor argument for a causative link here between the schooling situation and the outcome.

I would want to see the data broken down by household income, or even by households that have a stay at home parent vs not. I would be inclined to wager that in either case the disparity would dwindle to statistically insignificant.

I mostly went to private schools, and while the educational options were fewer, the classes were smaller, and that made a significant difference in the level of general disorder and thuggery. My parents were also well off and well educated, I test very well, and did so even when I was in public school.

I'm with Kurt Vonnegut on public school, just limit class sizes to 12, that would take care of the lord of the flies factor, and it would work out just fine.

Currently in the US we underfund the schools, and keep classes as large as we can while keeping classroom bloodbaths "rare". By doing this we get very little out of the institution of public education, and this neglect harms those from less educated and affluent families disproportionately, as they don't practicably have access to the other options, and don't have the osmotic education that takes place in affluent homes.

I read this a while ago and it really clicked with something inside me - my internal empathy and compassion. It feels appropriate for this sift.

source

**************

on this november the 11th I remember a veteran who has been an incredible influence on my life.
He was the man who taught me about november 11th being Armastice day. A day to remember how useless war is at solving our problems with others but how useful it is to the makers of death tools and their backers.

he taught me about the word enemy.

How so often we could more easily define enemy as a person or a people whose story we are ignorant of.
To make them an enemy it is in fact necessary to be ignorant of their stories. How easy it is to be ignorant of others by simply not asking the questions that open the doors to their world, because we should all realize how our lives have become invisible to people who do not stray far from the television or their front door to learn about our world.

no matter if it is a person or a nation of people, it is like an iceberg where so little is on the surface but what it truly necessary to know and act upon is what lies beneath that surface, what lies beneath the misunderstanding.

That is why war has to happen so quickly, without consideration for such things. IF we knew the deeper story of the people we are calling an enemy, we would not so easily call them enemy.

conversation, relationship, Understanding, empathy... these are what take time but give such greatness and wisdom to a people... to a nation of people. It is why we are no longer considered to be a great nation.
We fear what we don't take the time to know and we kill, with rationalizations already thought up before hand no matter if it is a civilian or a soldier, what we fear.

do we fear more than we understand?

This world takes an immense amount of cooperation to work. fear cuts down on our cooperation. fear destroys from within what no enemy can touch.

the veteran I am speaking about is Kurt Vonnegut who died a few months ago but while he lived, understood so much, asked many questions and shared from his heart without fear.

Posted by: lee jankowski | November 12, 2007 10:44 PM

I first heard about Semmelweis from Kurt Vonnegut. Here:

http://www.vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/commencement/southampton.html

It was a pleasure to learn more about him, the poor devil. Good post mauz.

>> ^Gabe_b:
Not going to quote 'cause the embedded quotes bother me, but that's an awesome exert bluecliff.
Godbless, he's in heaven now.


Agreed on the new Videosift being unagreeable.

Your video, Kurt Vonnegut reading the beginning of Breakfast of Champion, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Kurt Vonnegut on Scientists, Writers and Wars, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Kurt Vonnegut, Dresden, POW, anti war, Billy Pilgrim, Trafalmador' to 'Kurt Vonnegut, Dresden, POW, anti war, Billy Pilgrim, Tralfamador' - edited by kulpims