Wayward Correspondence

In my opinion, the need [for knowledge] doesn’t exist at all. There’s a need to understand, but that doesn’t require knowledge. The God hypothesis, for example, allows you to have an unparalleled understanding of absolutely everything while knowing absolutely nothing… Give a man a highly simplified model of the world and interpret every event on the basis of this simple model. This approach requires no knowledge. A few rote formulas, plus some so-called intuition, some so-called practical acumen, and some so-called common sense.

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—	Dr. Valentine Pillman, Roadside Picnic

One of those days.

dancequeer:

Russian soldiers teaching the German prisoners of war the cossack dance, at the Eastern Front in 1915.

I’m not sure it’s possible to look grumpier than the Russian soldier wielding the accordion.

collective-history:

Although he denied it till his grave, Frank Sinatra was tied to the Mafia throughout his entire life. He was often photographed vacationing and dining with noted gangsters. Director J. Edgar Hoover claimed a gold cigarette case found in Lucky Luciano’s home was inscribed from his “friend, Frank Sinatra.” Did the Mafia secretly protect and promote Ol’ Blue Eyes throughout his career? The rumors formed the basis for the Godfather character, Johnny Fontane, who gets a movie role thanks to Corleone meddling.

[There] was just a study that came out from the Harvard Public Policy Institute, found that—pretty scary results, I thought. Less than—this is kids 18 to 24, you know, college students, basically. Less than half of them think that the government has a responsibility to deal with things like healthcare or food, and so on. When they say the government doesn’t have a responsibility, that’s kind of an interesting concept. If people thought they were living in a democracy, they would say—they would ask the question whether it’s a public responsibility. But again, the propaganda system is designed to make you feel that the government is some alien force, and it’s against you. You know, you want to keep it away from your affairs. In a democratic society, it would be quite different. Like, you can see it on April 15th. And a good measure of the extent to which a democratic system is functioning is how people feel about taxes. If you had a functioning democratic society, April 15th would be a day of celebration. It’s the day on which we get together and fund the policies that we’ve decided on and that we’ve gotten our representatives to approve of. It’s not what it is here. It’s a day of mourning, because this alien force is coming to steal things from you.

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—	Noam Chomsky (via theamericanbear)

Curiosity-Filled Bonbon: The War's Over Girls, Pack Up and Go Home »

curiosityfilledbonbon:

So my boyfriend’s been calling me a walrus for a while. Not because I’m fat or have a moustache but because ‘feminist walrus’ has become an in-joke ever since a friend called me and his girlfriend, my friend, Feminist Walruses for having a bitch about the ridiculously weak female character in The…

beatonna:

speaking of Fancy Dress parties

Gee whiz it’s like this guy time traveled to Right Now and went on the internet and asked what people think is funny. Because the answer is bacon, for reasons I know not.

But since he won first prize I guess they were all hip to the future back in ‘94. 1894.