KGB Report

‎"'Hurricane Earl Headed for New Jersey.' Isn't this about the time Pat Robertson says God sent it there to punish them for 'Jersey Shore'?"
-Elayne Boosler

Categories: Elayne Boosler; Pat Robertson; Quote of the day; Religion

Merchants have no country.
-Thomas Jefferson

Categories: Quote of the day; Thomas Jefferson

Categories: Broadway; Fantasticks; Jerry Orbach; Music; Video

If you want to visit Paris, the best time to go is during August, when there aren't any French people there.
-Kenneth Stilling

Categories: French; Paris; Quote of the day

It's time for musical theater patrons to tell producers the relentless downsizing of show orchestras must end.

The Broadway production of "The Phantom of the Opera" has 27 musicians. During its 2006 pass through Pittsburgh, the touring company had only 15 in the pit. The current production has a mere 13; 10, if you exclude the three synthesizer keyboards. There's something fundamentally wrong when the ensemble of the most successful musical in Broadway history is identical in size to The Tonight Show Band.

The show's score no longer soars majestically from the pit. It's now a homogenized emission from the theater's sound system. The diminutive acoustic levels of the emasculated "orchestra" must be augmented with the synthesized output, then processed, equalized, compressed and amplified. The end result is devoid of vibrance and dynamic range. It's like listening to an iPod on steroids.

Producers say they must reduce costs to keep a show going, especially one heavy with physical effects and costumes such as "Phantom." I can deal with a scaled-down chandelier, but eliminating the music from a musical? That makes about as much sense as cutting the overhead for "Romeo and Juliet" by ditching the unstable emo girl for an animatronic replacement with pre-recorded dialogue triggered by an infrared transmitter in Romeo's codpiece.

Roughly $3 of my $70 ticket goes to funding the orchestra. Once you reach those pricing levels, what's another five bucks to maintain the integrity of the work as it was originally performed?

The argument that the average theatergoer can't tell the difference is irrelevant and disingenuous. The average person also can't distinguish between fresh and reconstituted orange juice, but when I go out of my way to visit an orange grove, I don't want to be handed a can of Minute Maid and be told "it's just as good as the real thing."

It's a Broadway musical? I want to hear it the way it was performed on Broadway. The next time a show with an anemic, overly synthesized pit comes to town, I'll just stay at home and listen to the cast album.

Categories: Broadway; KGB Opinion; Music; Phantom of the Opera; WTF?

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
-Thomas Paine

Categories: Church and State; Hypocrisy; Infidelities; Quote of the day; Religion; Thomas Paine

If charity begins at home, I bet I know in which room.
-The Covert Comic

Categories: Covert Comic; Quote of the day

August 28, 1963

"I am happy to join with you today, in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

"But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

"In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

"But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

"And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

"Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

"I have a dream today.

"I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

"I have a dream today.

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

"This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

"And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

"Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

"Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

"But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

"Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

"Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Categories: Civil Rights; Classic; Daily Show; Freedom; Glenn Beck; History; Hypocrisy; I have a dream...; Jon Stewart; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Video; WTF?

A Contrived Regime Of Nomenclature, Yielding Mnemonics.
-Gareth Owen

Categories: Quote of the day

It began with a link on my Facebook page to a Reader's Digest article, "24 Things You Might Be Saying Wrong," which kicked off an interesting conversation.

(Friend A) The one that gets me is the "less" and "fewer" confusion. We had worksheets in preschool [Friend A is a retired teacher] that said to circle the picture that had less. It's ok if the kids could look at the picture and see that the glass of milk had less in it than the other glass, but when they were showing sets of fruit that the kids could count, fewer would have been the word of choice.

(Friend B) You would correct people.

(Friend A) Me too... If I don't correct them, I at least say the correct word under my breath.

(Friend C) It really irks me when people try to be hyper-correct and end up being wrong, as in, "The party was fun for John and I." Or when people insist on always putting the "S" in time designations like "8 am CST" all year round, even though Standard Time is only in effect for about a third of the year now.

(Friend D) My favorite is waiting for someone to report "the Noble (sic) Peace Prize in Medicine was awarded this morning...".

(KGB) Friend C- I think we're particularly sensitive because of our programming backgrounds, where syntactic inaccuracy can be catastrophic. Your "John and I" is a good example. Confusing the nominative and objective is the moral equivalent of transposing input() and output().
Irregardless, for all intensive purposes, it doesn't phase me. At least not back in the day.

(Friend D) ?"the moral equivalent of transposing input() and output().".
Or, as the restaurant owner pointed out to Wilma and Betty (approx. quote from memory), "using the in door (from the kitchen to the dining room) for out, and the out door for in".

(Friend A) Kevin, You're too funny. Have you ever read the Poisonwood Bible? Each chapter is written from a different character's perspective and one girl's chapters are written much like your above sentence... (BTW, I'm having a hard time writing to you because I'm constantly checking my grammar and spelling. IT'S very hard.)

(KGB) I think it was the narcissist Rachel character with the pompously inaccurate grammar. I liked Leah much better. ;-)

I "blame" my attitude about grammar on my mother. I had problems with English in elementary school, and she spent hours helping me. She loved the language and her enthusiasm was contagious. Some of my fondest memories are of the evenings we spent diagramming sentences. I still remember the thrill of correctly identifying and diagramming a subordinating conjunction. Some will laugh derisively at that statement: how nerdy. Yet it describes an accomplishment as significant as tying one's shoes for the first time, or getting one's first hit in a Little League game. My mother knew my future would depend on my language skills, so she instilled in me her passion for the subject.

I was grateful when she corrected my errors. She was helping me; her actions were totally altruistic. I don't understand why the man about to give a speech or presentation expresses his sincere thanks when you mention he has a piece of food stuck in his teeth, yet becomes sullen and resentful when you tell him "irregardless" isn't a word. Both are potential sources of embarrassment, especially in the context of my example. Yet the first is considered an act of friendship and the second, obnoxious pedantry.

For what it's worth, I only mention grammar and spelling errors to people about whom I respect and/or care. And you're riting am good.

(Friend B) ummmm can you care a little less then LOL

(KGB) Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
-Janis Joplin

Categories: English grammar; Janis Joplin; Reader's Digest

I had a small get-together last weekend, and decided to buy one of those pre-cooked shrimp rings at Giant Eagle. You know, one of those tasteful arrangements of deceased shellfish that resembles a SpongeBob Christmas wreath.

The shrimp were frozen solid and I only had a couple hours to thaw them out. I looked at the package label for direction, and it read:

"Do not thaw at room temperature. Do not thaw in microwave".

Wouldn't it be a bit more helpful to tell me how to thaw it, rather than how not to do it?

If they're going to take that bass-ackwards approach, they should at least try to be a bit more comprehensive. For example:

• Do not thaw at room temperature.
• Do not thaw in microwave.
• Do not thaw in washing machine, clothes dryer, or on top of your television.
• Do not thaw with flaming petroleum products.
• Do not thaw under armpits.
• Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. (Oops. Wrong list.)
• Do not thaw in cat litter box.
• Do not thaw in toilet bowl.
• Do not thaw with windshield wiper fluid.
• Do not thaw with propane torch.
• Do not thaw with sunlight.
• Do not thaw with moonlight.
• Do not thaw with starlight.
• Do not thaw with Lite Brite.
• Do not thaw in Easy Bake Oven.
• Do not thaw with tiki torch.
• Do not thaw in geyser.
• Do not thaw in toe socks.
• Do not thaw with pyrokinesis.
• Do not thaw with fissionable nuclear material.

 
A quick internet search revealed the recommended method of defrosting frozen shrimp is to place it in the refrigerator or run it under cold water. The danger of thawing at room temperature is that as the surface temperature of the shrimp increases, nasty bacteria can multiply. Nuking in the microwave would probably kill all the bacteria, but mess up the shrimp's texture.

As a friend noted, the store's primary concern is not enhancing my shrimp comsumption experience, but rather to prevent the filing of food poisoning and rubbery shrimp-induced lawsuits.

And what is this "run under cold water" business? One assumes they're talking about the cold water tap of the kitchen sink, but it's August here in the northern temperate zone, and while the water temperature is lower than the kitchen's air temperature, it is the same as the temperature in my cellar which is, technically, a room. Which means the cold water is actually room temperature. As the great philosopher Steven Wright noted, "The temperature in any room is room temperature."

Whatever. I thawed them using the not-connected-to-the-water-heater tap of the kitchen sink and placed them on the table, where they were slowly consumed over the course of three hours.

We all survived, an indication of the efficiency and effectiveness of the human digestive and immune systems. Not to mention the secondary antiseptic qualities of vodka-enhanced cocktail sauce.

Tangentially related useless trivia:
For future reference, the eleven official shrimp sizes are:

• Extra Colossal
• Super Colossal
• Colossal
• Extra Jumbo
• Jumbo
• Extra Large
• Large
• Medium Large
• Medium
• Small
• Extra Small

 
At times like this, I really miss George Carlin.

Categories: Consumerism; Food; KGB Family; Lawsuits; Shellfish; Stupidity; Things That Make You Wonder; WTF?

Outrage over Atheist's Plans to Build Vacant Lot in Jerusalem
(posting in reddit.com's self.atheism forum)

Categories: Atheism; Church and State; First Amendment; Ground Zero; Headline of the day; Religion; Snrk

"Fox (News) tells us the terrible thing about this Kingdom Foundation... it's a very bad guy, but they never mention this fella's name. And they never showed this fella's picture. And they certainly never mentioned the fella they're talking about is part owner- of their company! Did the gang at Fox and Friends genuinely not know the head of the Kingdom Foundation's name and the fact that he is one of their part owners, or were they purposely covering it up because it did not help their fear-driven narrative?"-Jon Stewart

"If they're not as stupid as I believe them to be, they are really ******* evil."

"And if they're not as evil as I think they are, they are stupid."

"We're talking potatoes with mouths."

Categories: Al-Waleed bin Talal; Church and State; Daily Show; Evil; First Amendment; Fox News; Ground Zero; Hypocrisy; Imam Rauf; In the news; Jon Stewart; Kingdom Foundation; News Corporation; Politics; Religion; Republicans; Rudy Giuliani; Rupert Murdoch; Stupidity; Video; Wahhabists; WTF?

I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?
-Ray Bradbury

Categories: Bugs Bunny; Daffy Duck; Mel Blanc; Men; Nostalgia; Quote of the day; Ray Bradbury; Saturday morning cartoons; Warner Bros cartoons; Yosemite Sam

If brevity is the soul of wit, why does it have more syllables?
-The Covert Comic

Categories: Covert Comic; Quote of the day

In principle, at least:

"Tragedy has been and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning to do evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it. But each horrible act can't become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. When an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring, demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain... That is not our role in American society, and we will not be forced to play it. If you disagree, that's your right. I respect that. But we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told 'Do not come here, your are unwelcome in your own land.' "-Charlton Heston

"Thank you, Charlton Heston. Of course, he was speaking out after another tragedy, when people on the left had demanded that the NRA, out of respect to the recent victims of Columbine, not hold their scheduled NRA convention in Denver, near the site of the tragedy. And by the way, I'm sure that I would have been one of those people: painting too narrow a picture, connecting irresponsibly the actions of two psychotics to an entire group of reasonable people expressing their Constitutional rights... the point is, I was wrong and Heston was right. And if you replace NRA with Muslim community and second amendment with first amendment, he's still right."-Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, which is, inexplicably, still the best source of unbiased news and cogent commentary on cable.

The Daily Show clip above reminds me of what I wrote when Heston died two years ago.

Charlton Heston initially made his mark portraying Moses and Ben Hur. Most recently, he's remembered for his tenure as NRA president and the comment about prying his rifle from his cold, dead hands.

That's unfortunate.

Heston was a man who did not wear his beliefs like seasonal sportswear. He did not parrot the official party line or mindlessly repeat the neocon talking points du jour. His famous sound bite overshadows his true legacy: a conservative whose dedication to dignity, manners and reasoned discourse should be adopted by those of all ideological leanings.

Whenever I heard him speak at length- not the snippets pulled out of context for cable news, but in full conversations with qualified interviewers- he accomplished something that very few conservatives have been able to do. He made me think about my position, review the logic that he used to arrive at his different viewpoint and- in some cases- reconsider my stance. He rarely, if ever, actually changed my mind. But in eloquently stating the opposing view, he made me respect it and seek potential areas of compromise.

He didn't accomplish this with ad hominem attacks, alliterative or rhyming jingoism, macho bluster, or any of the other quasi-intellectual blunt instruments typically employed in what passes as discourse these days. And no one would have been better at it. Who else but Heston, True Lies director James Cameron noted, could play someone "who can plausibly intimidate Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

Read and listen to Heston's famous Winning The Cultural War address to the Harvard Law School Forum. While you may not agree with everything he says, you must agree it is a quintessential example of what free speech and political discourse should be in this country."

I don't know whether he would have backed the Tea Party movement given the suspect nature of its "grassroots" support. But I suspect the group would gain a lot more credibility if it followed Heston's advice:

"Well, the answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

"You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom."

Heston was a gentleman and an American. We've lost a great guy.

"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage is history's true currency."
-Charlton Heston

Categories: Al-Waleed bin Talal; Bill O'Reilly; bin Laden; Charlton Heston; Church and State; Daily Show; Dick Morris; Eric Bolling; First Amendment; Fox News; Ground Zero; Hypocrisy; Imam Rauf; In the news; Jon Stewart; News Corporation; Newt Gingrich; Politics; Religion; Republicans; Rudy Giuliani; Rupert Murdoch; Video; Wahhabists

Categories: Bill O'Reilly; Campaign Funding; Conservatives; Daily Show; Fox News; Glenn Beck; Hypocrisy; In the news; Politics; Republicans; TV; Video

Someone on Reddit asked what was the best movie on atheism.

Someone else replied, "Pretty much anything by Michael Bay is guaranteed to be two long, Godless hours."

(Michael Bay is a motion picture director whose films include Transformers I, II and III, Bad Boys I and II, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon and The Rock.)

Categories: Atheism; Michael Bay; Movies; Quote of the day; Reddit; Religion; Snrk

Sierra plane crash victims died doing what they loved

Screaming in terror?

Categories: Headline of the day; Media and Advertising; WTF?

"Two things...
1) your caps lock is on.
2) your brain isn't".

Categories: Facebook; Snrk