Bedeviling Conversation
Among frugalfurguy's namesake squidoo lenses, the page on saving money zeroing in on Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin's frugality classic is most recent. It has now been recognized among the featured lenses at Squidutils.
Frugalfurguy thanks Squidutils and all the lensmasters who contributed lenses to this money-saving family on squidoo.
"The Sitcom Nanny Versus Great Aunt's Fur Coat" At 100!
One hundred visitors have now stopped by a page on squidoo that looks at how the sitcom's creators exploited conflicting cultural values surrounding fur used as clothing for comic effect. It's been a great run, and I look forward to the next 100 guests in half the time.
There's now a variety of opinion at each of the polls included for the three Youtube segments of the season 2 episode 12 comedy "Take Back Your Mink" of The Nanny commented on and celebrated at a Squidoo page dedicated to the episode.
The first poll, "C.C. Babcock in this Scene, how do you like this woman with the tusks?" now stands with viewers split 50 percent to 50 percent between delightful and demonic.
The second poll "Fran and Her Mom, who are you rooting for in this segment?" has viewers favoring Fran.
And the final poll soliciting viewers' opinions about the episode's bias split viewers on opposed but moderate positions.
If you love the sitcom The Nanny or have strong views about the appropriateness of wearing fur coats, these polls might be worth a visit.
He's a living oxymoron as his name suggests, but so far, squidoo readers have been left to ponder his extravagance. Now he adds the spice of his money saving ace up the sleeve in a tribute to the underground classic of personal finance, Your Money or Your Life.
From the June 2, 2011 broadcast of Caroline Casey's Visionary Activist Show starting just before minute 38 of the show:
And then [James] Carse [Finite and Infinite Games] says this very fun thing, again as an offering. ... He says, "Evil is never intended as evil." Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil‚ only good Indian is a dead Indian ... He says it is evil for a nation to believe it is the last best hope on earth or return to Zion or to try to eliminate evil in others. He says that is the impulse behind evil itself like, "Ohh, this is fun work with. This is provocative." It's like the thing I always say ... what if the idea of matriarchy is a patriarchal concept?
--Transcript not reviewed or endorsed by Caroline Casey
Progressives generally would have little trouble at all applying Carse's viewpoint here to conservative causes such as the war on drugs. Conservatives saw the evil brought about by narcotics abuse and set about to eliminate that evil. This effort led to a situation where not only do drugs continue to flow, but black market pricing allows organized underground cartels to thrive and to corrupt governments with their surfeit of cash. Meanwhile, apprehending, prosecuting, and incarcerating people whose sole offense was possession or use of banned drugs drains resources.
Voices from the left question this criminalizing attack on the evils evident in narcotics abuse, as if the war on drugs had mushroomed into its own species of evil. They propose decriminalizing, regulating, even taxing narcotics use along with making treatment available for addicts who are fed up with the consequences of their relationships with their drugs of choice. They argue that such a shift of strategy would ease a police-state mentality required to enforce drug laws.
I wonder if, in embracing the animal rights' cause célèbre campaign to shut down the fur trade, progressive causes don't mirror the right's impulse to maintain the war on drugs. As a fur lover, I'm not myself going to say that everything about killing animals for their skins is angelic. There's evil to it, just as there's evil in drug addiction. However, if the movement to stop killing animals to make fur garments does not first succeed in universally stamping out the desire for fur garments in every human heart, it seems as though banning the trade could make furs into just the kind of black market commodity drugs have become under drug war prohibition. How do we know that animals killed to satisfy banned desires for furs would be any more humanely treated than animals killed under the present regime where prohibition of the fur trade tends to be the exception rather than the norm?
If you're going to universally extinguish human desires for articles made of real animal fur, it would make sense to understand the range of those desires. If your relationship with people who harbor such desires is one that requires them to grovel in shame for having those desires, you can expect your opponents to mistrust you, to respond with defensiveness, or to throw up other hateful barriers.
What if at least in some of your fellow human beings, the desire to snuggle with and possess pelts skinned from another creature is after all part of those humans' own animal nature? Do you require all humans to live at the same level of angelic abstinence as you? Has some god or some god's messenger appointed you "to try to eliminate evil in others"?
Revisiting Ford Through Greg Grandin's Historic Perspective
Ever since hearing an interview with Greg Grandin on Henry Ford's failed plans for a rubber plantation, I've been deeply curious. Ford seemed to have some rather peculiar ideas, and they seemed to be peculiar in a familiar way. Listening to some of Grandin's comments about Ford's philosophy was almost like déjà vu, transporting me deep into childhood.
A musical highlight by lensmaster frugalfurguy is his Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
