This letter was hard to read. I haven't followed the story at all, but I do feel bad for the guy.
Save it for the recording angel, Ookie. The spirits of Balto, Greyfriars Bobby, Cavall and Argo will piss on your grave.
I don't find that letter at all persuasive or sympathetic, but I wonder what it would take for someone in Vick's position to write a letter that I would find persuasive or sympathetic. I think such a letter would need to show a grasp of the nature of his offense(s), but even then ...
Balto! I love Balto. I sat on his statue many times as a child.
Feh. All kinds of "I've accepted responsibility, so I shouldn't go to jail", which is a peculiar form of reasoning. Also: if you send me away, poor kids won't get toys on Christmas.
Also also: "soon to be fiancé[e]"? What exactly is the difference between that and "fiancé[e]"?
Also also: "soon to be fiancé[e]"? What exactly is the difference between that and "fiancé[e]"?
He's pretty certain that when he asks, which will be soon, she will accept.
2: Argos. Damn animal-cruelty-induced rage.
Once again, I'll be the contrarian. The letter makes sense to me. Michael Vick sitting in jail for the next two years won't make anything better for anybody.
"Soon to be fiancee" = the mother of my children isn't just my babies' mama, I'm going to make an honest woman out of her.
I dunno, I'm pretty damn animal-lover as far as they go, but even I think he's getting a bit of a rough deal. Vick and his friends tortured and killed dogs, which is pretty damn vile, but it was still the death and suffering of animals. When other sports stars drive drunk, carry weapons and do other activities that clearly endanger humans, they rarely end up with treatment anywhere near as harsh.
Eh, I guess I dislike all the moralizing as well, since I find the idea that overgrown manchild athletes should be moral pillars as ridiculous as the money involved in these sports.
Michael Vick sitting in jail for the next two years won't make anything better for anybody.
Except, perhaps, for some dogs when people see that dog fighting carries with it serious consequences. But, yeah, I don't see that incarceration has any real rehabilitative or preventative value.
I find the apology as about as ridiculous as the media circus. What he did was wrong, but there was more fuss made over this than there would be if he'd shot someone.
8: "Your Honor, we could sit here for hours arguing about who promoted illegal dogfighting and the illegal gambling thereon, tortured and killed dogs that weren't up to fighting snuff and then initially lied about it until his confederates rolled over on him and then failed a drug test while waiting for a sentencing decision on his plea bargain, but instead of playing the [finger quotes] 'blame game,' let's just agree that we're both wrong and leave prison out of it."
I feel I should also be seeking mercy for eating veal confit last week.
13: But the letter doesn't say that. He says straight up that he was wrong. And as far as illegal gambling and marijuana go, please. Those are stupid-ass laws to begin with that serve no purpose except to appease a bunch of Bible-thumpers and allow a bunch of hypocritical legislators to look all tough.
Does anyone know if the law is being applied relatively equally in this case? In other words, have perpetrators found guilty of similar crimes received similar sentences in Virginia (or was he tried in Georgia)? If so, I'm all for Vick going to jail. But, if he's being made an example of, even if fewer dogs might suffer in the future, then this whole thing stinks.
What he did was wrong, but there was more fuss made over this than there would be if he'd shot someone.
Jere/my Fre/ese has a conjecture about this phenomenon, which is known as the shrinking pet-child gap.
Jere/my Fre/ese has a conjecture about this phenomenon, which is known as the shrinking pet-child gap.
Lord I hate people.
Along the lines of "soon to be a fianceé," I saw a post somewhere the other day quoting a Clinton press release which said that Obama "claims to espouse" certain positions. Doesn't he either espouse them or not? How can he just claim to espouse them?
I'll do anything for anyone and often have a hard time saying no.
Wait, is he apologizing for what he was convicted of, or... something else?
And as far as illegal gambling and marijuana go, please. Those are stupid-ass laws to begin with that serve no purpose except to appease a bunch of Bible-thumpers and allow a bunch of hypocritical legislators to look all tough.
Gosh, I feel so uncool. I mean, failing a court-ordered drug test pending sentencing on federal criminal charges is like the pigs hassling you about your stash when you're just trying to chill, you know?
Try pulling the other one, Apo. I'd attack the soft underbelly of white liberal guilt if I were you.
Does anyone know if the law is being applied relatively equally in this case?
I dunno, I would guess not from what was in his letter, and what I read of the early coverage of the case. It really does sound like dogfighting is a fairly under-the-radar crime (probably sensibly so in places where cops could be concentrating on violent crime or the such instead), and Michael Vick was just such a high-profile name that the rumor of his being behind the Bad Newz Kennels spread ultra-fast and was pursued by cops who probably would've ignored an otherwise non-descript kennel owner.
19: When I read the recent NYT article which featured a couple that were taking the dog to visit 'his grandparents', my visceral reaction was a faint hope that they'd have one day, in a famine-stricken war zone, to eat their dog. My viscera are not nice.
Best line: "I purchased a a church for my pastor back in July". My father-in-law was a minister of a mainstream white collar church. He claimed that whenever a rich middle aged guy suddenly became both a big donor and an extremely active participant in the church, there was an indictment in his future and he was looking for a character witness. No one ever bought him an entire church though.
Both Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky becaame very interested in philanthropy when the feds started breathing down their necks. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also began when Microsoft was being prosecuted under the antitrust laws, and Gates was presumably a "person of interest" (although I don't think he was ever indicted).
[quick check with google] Yep, Vick was indicted in July.
I can understand, even with my child-like intellect, that what he did is really not as evil as if he'd done the same to a person but it still produces a visceral reaction. The letter stinks to me of "what I did was wrong but, you see, I'm a special snowflake with a reputation to protect," and that makes the bile churn even harder.
Comparing Vick to John Yoo is a terrible insult to Vick. Torturing humans and fighting dogs (some dogs like to fight) are pretty different.
I can understand, even with my child-like intellect, that what he did is really not as evil as if he'd done the same to a person
You're categorical about this? I don't think I am. I'd regard it as less evil to kick Cheney in the teeth than to kick just about any tame dog.
I'd regard it as less evil to kick Cheney in the teeth than to kick just about any tame dog.
Well, Jesus, Michael, way to stack the deck.
failing a court-ordered drug test pending sentencing on federal criminal charges
Why is a guy facing sentencing on charges completely unrelated to drugs in any way, shape, or form having to take a drug test?
...some dogs like to fight....
It's always the same goddamned excuse for doing to somebody else what you want to do to them: "some women like it," "she likes it," "some kids like it," "that kid liked it, honestly," "the dogs like it," "the servants like it," "the natives like it," etc., etc., et goddamned cetera.
25: It actually had never occurred to me (though I now know it to be the case) that there can be individual criminal liability for antitrust violations.
reaction ... to eat their dog
Will you be my friend? I have a similar reaction to pampering animals and treating them as quasi-people.
Is it Anne Frank's diary that mentions the trade in "roof rabbits" during the famine of 1944 or another book about the occupied low countries? Even France, where the Germans were relatively gentle and the land was rich, ate domestic animals in the cities.
Why is a guy facing sentencing on charges completely unrelated to drugs in any way, shape, or form having to take a drug test?
Perhaps because he's out on bond on the sufferance of the court, having been convicted pursuant to the plea agreement?
Don't be obtuse, Flippanter. You know what I'm asking.
32: Isn't that why Oppenheim, head of DeBeers, can't enter the U.S.?
The "shrinking pet/child gap" doesn't begin to explain this. Bphd had a long post on a cild shot sic times, and AFAIK she is the obly blogger I read that mentions ot. Celebrity is probably a bigger factor.
And my dogs are more valuable to me than Cheney, that is, Cheney dies first. Or Cheney + Bush. Or C + B + Osama. And I certainly could imagine killing a 100 specific people to save my dogs. And I don't much like Idaho, anyway.
28: Ah, but you've missed an important point. I said person. You said Cheney. Apples and oranges, m'friend.
As to being categorical, no, I'd actually rather not. I'd like to think that I value all life equally but suspect that I don't live up to that. I've got no objections on principle to eating meat - assuming it isn't raised in cruel conditions, etc., which muddies the waters - and I've never been anything even like in a position of having to choose between a person or animal but I either generously or cynically imagine that I would save or protect a being that can talk over one that can't. That's a really fuzzy line, though, and one I'm laying down very casually with very little thought regarding broad categories. When it comes down to individuals, I can think of specific persons I would rank lower than my cat on the Pull From Path of Trolley to-do list in a heartbeat.
And I don't much like Idaho, anyway.
that's the spirit!
And apo, quit pretending that marijuana isn't a gateway drug to canine abuse.
erhaps because he's out on bond on the sufferance of the court, having been convicted pursuant to the plea agreement?
Are you kidding me? If the court sufferance referenced traffic laws, you'd find a rolled stop sign important?
35: In your world, do federal judges not care about convicted criminals' compliance with laws and general good behavior pending sentencing? What color is the sky there? Is the letter something other than an attempt to convince the judge that Ookie is behaving properly in anticipation of sentencing?
In your world, do federal judges not care about convicted criminals' compliance with laws and general good behavior pending sentencing?
Dollars to donuts says it varies a lot.
Are you kidding me? If the court sufferance referenced traffic laws, you'd find a rolled stop sign important?
Yes, but I hate people who roll through stop signs anyway. I'd certainly find relevant something more comparable to failing a drug test, like being stopped driving drunk or riding in a stolen car.
comparable to failing a drug test, like being stopped driving drunk or riding in a stolen car
We have completely different worldviews, I see.
I thought you meant "taking the dog to visit the grandparents" in the way people tell a kid "we gave the dog to a man with a huge farm where it could run and play al day". No, you mean they actually took the dog to visit its grandparents. Ack.
As far as the "Eichmann was good to his family, but still must hang for the things done" argument, well, there are the social utility arguments for deterrence and all that. But for all those who though History of Violence really sucked, I can't seem to shake its question from my mind.
The deterrence argument for hunting down that old Aushwitz guard seem to have become weakened over the years, especially recently, and we may be down to a revenge argument.
Was Eichmann in any way dangerous in Argentine?
We have completely different worldviews, I see.
"In criminals of blood, if the fact be evident, severity is justice."
45: Haha. I wish it had just been a euphemism. The thing is, I actually like dogs! I had a dog when I was a kid. I want a puppy! But, like, I know it's not a child.
The otherwise perfect doctor kills her wastrel adulterous trust-fund husband for his money, which she uses to build a child cancer clinic.
Twenty years later, his body rises out of the Texas bog, and the doctor must hang?
If I am the only one seeing the carcass, I rebury it.
(If I think at all, and there can be dispute, I think in analogies.)
This letter was hard to read. I haven't followed the story at all, but I do feel bad for the guy.
For fuck's sake, why? His defense is that he's an animal lover? ("I grew up loving animals and still do to this day.")
48:Not even irrational. Socialized. But that's cool, I guess.
49: The doctor must go to jail, not hang.
48:And not...well, let me put it this way. I know I could save the lives of children with the money I spend on dog food. I know I am making a choice, and children are dying.
50: Yeah, that was my feeling about 1, too. I don't get how this letter makes Vick more sympathetic.
I am also unsympathetic to Vick's lawyer, who must have been stoned when he permitted Vick to submit that letter, and who has even less excuse than Vick for being stoned.
"In criminals of blood, if the fact be evident, severity is justice."
You're not gonna find too much support on the "smoking the ganja = grand theft auto or recklessly endangering other drivers and pedestrians" tack, I'm pretty sure.
I've never even smoked up and I find that pretty damn stupid.
I think that ex-Nazis played a harsh role in Paraguay. Argentina, I don's know.
The original reference to the failed drug test was an allusion to Ookie's rank arrogance and the bad faith manigest in a letter that attempts to argue it out of the record. I am not in favor of executing stoners, unless they happen to get in my way, smoke outside my window or call me "dude." Then it's open season on all hippies and I am John Hanning Speke.
Yes, but I hate people who roll through stop signs anyway.
Why? I find this just plain weird.
Anyway, on NPR yesterday the Senator in charge of the Baseball steroid thing was on. And he said he didn't believe the league should penalize the players. He was asked what about the law? They, after all, were drug offenders. The senator replied that federal prosecutors, he was a former one himself, didn't go after individual users, so why treat these baseball players differently? Why, he asked, create special law just for them? So I guess that senator, at least, wouldn't believe in prosecuting Vick for the pot. (I was also left wondering what he'd had to say about the NPR report the day before, about how many of the people in jail on crack charges were simple non-violent users.)
I am not in favor of executing stoners, unless they happen to get in my way, smoke outside my window or call me "dude." Then it's open season on all hippies and I am John Hanning Speke.
I'm beginning to suspect that there is very little in the way of fun and joy in your life, certainly not noticeable in the midst of all the bitterness.
49
"The otherwise perfect doctor kills her wastrel adulterous trust-fund husband for his money, which she uses to build a child cancer clinic."
Isn't this the sort of unlikely hypothetical that liberals object to in the case of torture?
bad faith manigest
Dude, you made a typo.
I don't know much about the Vick case, but it's pretty weird how people get so worked up about it. For the most part, America seems to be A-OK with the torture of animals. Factory farming, anyone? But somehow people get all frothy if the animal in question is cute, or a dog, or something.
There was a comedy show awhile back where the family heard a story about a mass murderer who killed the parents, grandparents, children, an infant, the cats and dogs, and the goldfish:
"The goldfish? He must have been insane".
In the same way, when the Taliban destroyed the baniyan sculptures, that went over the line for me.
62: Christ on a cracker, we're okay with the torture of people, as long as they're Muslim. This country makes no sense.
I'm beginning to suspect that there is very little in the way of fun and joy in your life, certainly not noticeable in the midst of all the bitterness.
Oh, burn. How shall I go on?
63:Like I said, this is all socialized. Being a sociopath, I have often considered, only as a hypothetical of course, burning the Mona Lisa. Or why buying the neat $100 Xmas toy for your kid is not balanced against the starving children of wherever, as a deliberate & conscious choice.
There the good people & the bad. I am very bad, besides being hypocritical. Since all ignore me, I am not dangerous.
67: Bob, do you have any Cretan blood?
How shall I go on?
apo will get you some KB.
68: I can answer that for him. "No".
apo will get you some KB.
I'll need the money up front though. Day care is killing me.
I'll need the money up front though. Day care is killing me.
Hey, you want your money, one of my people has to see the stuff first.
66. Coppola's use of the cute puppy in the basket triggering the slaughter of a Vietnamese family in Apocalypse Now was a bit over-the-top, but the audible mass audience reaction of "awwww... it's a puppy" drove me in to a murderous funk that lasted for weeks.
What a piece of work is a man! .... the paragon of animals!
49: If I am the only one seeing the carcass, I rebury it.
Me too. But what's wrong with the revenge argument? Hunting down someone who has done you wrong is good for your mental health. If society wants to take over that function from individuals and families that's fine as long as it gets done.
Hanging dogs falls right in that bitter spot of cruelty that we can see people more or less like us committing. If he'd been personally handing people, we'd shake our heads, think he was a monster, and move on. Torture is thoroughly politicized and we don't have a visceral sense of it anyway. But everybody can imagine what hanging a dog would be like, and precisely because it's not as awful as what some people do to humans, we react more immediately to it.
68:Flippanter is trying his trick of sending me off to endlessly google and research some bizarre & obscure reference. Shoulda send something like "Ya know, I think Max Stirner is relevant to Bob's point." Just picked up a copy of The Ego
Although, damn I am inexplicably & suddenly curious about Cretans.
everybody can imagine what hanging a dog would be like
!
It's a little like drowning a caterpillar in glue, I understand.
Emerson knows me better. I am off searching for some Don Novello material.
And apo, quit pretending that marijuana isn't a gateway drug to canine abuse.
We have a winner.
Personally, for me, it was the other way around, but then I'm a little precocious, and started off with goldfish and peanut butter. Man, the protein highs...
Hanging dogs falls right in that bitter spot of cruelty that we can see people more or less like us committing.
In all candidacy, speak for yourself.
76: Isn't being able to empathize with the criminal generally correlated with being more forgiving, rather than less, of his crimes?
Hanging dogs falls right in that bitter spot of cruelty that we can see people more or less like us committing.
Meaning, middle-class people? Or people who we identify with? Because, no; it's the kind of thing that I think people who are seriously fucked up do and I would be fucking horrified if I found out someone I knew had done something like that.
I'm not sure we empathize, exactly, but it's very callous but not quite horrible enough to be monstrous. Well, apparently it is for people who are running for office....
This is going to end with me hanging all of you just to make a point, isn't it?
not quite horrible enough to be monstrous
Nope. It's horrible and monstrous both.
Unless it ends with you realizing that your moral compass is not properly aligned with American standard time. Again.
87: I suspect it's more to do, as some have said, with the shrinking gap between puppy and child, and the horror at harming an innocent (who is Man's Best Friend.)
B might actually be right; hanging a dog seems cruel but not like such a big deal to me. (Sorry helpy-chalk.) So I'll now leave the thread to you effete Occidentals.
Wait, I'm not gone. It's funny that Vick says "I'm not a beast." Because we hang beasts, you know.
hanging a dog is horrible, not different from hanging a human
in terms of reincarnations
Ogged's comments remind me of Rory Stewart's observations of the way people who had lived in tiny villages up in the mountains of Afghanistan for their entire lives viewed dogs.
God, it's true. Not so much in Tehran, and maybe not among the younger folks, but the generation that raised me thinks that loving animals is hilarious. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "They think of their animals as family! [snicker snort]"
Huh, and I was just trying to get your goat.
but the generation that raised me thinks that loving animals is hilarious.
But not, I'm betting "loving" animals.
May your lily-white descendants be trapped in the scorching desert sun.
This is going to end with me hanging all of you
the answer's always violence for you people, isn't it?
the answer's always violence for you people, isn't it?
It's the only language they understand.
103. being a philosopher means admitting the truth, no matter how ugly
Trying to find a quote from Paul of Tarsus with which to confound ogged, I have gotten lost at Wikipedia in the differences between agape, caritas, eros, & philia. I though "caritas" was the word used by Paul with a meaning close to "philia", but apparently the early Christians used "agape".
This is not good at all. I have seen "love" from all sides now, but I really don't know love at all.
I blame that fucker C.S. Lewis.
but the generation that raised me thinks that loving animals is hilarious.
The difference being those people killed a fair amount of their own food. My dad is like this. His response to finding out a bunch of rabbits the Mexican housepainters gave us were pregnant wasn't "how am I going to give these all away", but, "good thing we have a chest freezer".
I grew up in a household where my dad butchered rabbits, ducks, chickens, etc. for meat, and as I recall, one of your earliest memories is watching your uncle butcher a lamb.
Yeah, that's right, and you're probably right.
I though "caritas" was the word used by Paul with a meaning close to "philia"
"Caritas" is how "agape" is translated in the Vulgate.
The difference being those people killed a fair amount of their own food.
gswift, you of all people should know that there is no contradiction between loving animals and eating meat that you dress yourself: don't you have bird dogs?
I don't have any dogs, but grew up with them.
I was talking about animals in general rather than dogs.
Wikipedia does have a full article on the Lewis book that led me to my belief that an utterly disinterested love was the best kind. By disinterested I mean...well skip that. But damn, the early Christian's interpretation of Agape apparently included much of what I would call Storge thus I am now all utterly fucked over.
But not a terrible topic for holiday study.
The difference being those people killed a fair amount of their own food.
I dunno, Buck grew up killing chickens, the occasional pig, trapping muskrats, and so on, and he's a huge sentimental mush about pet animals.
Having spent some time, I will just accept Lewis's definitions and rankings, and blow the early Christians off. The Lewis book is certainly Christian, but I was able to use it even as an atheist. Love is potentiated to the degree it does not seek or accept a profit, a return, reciprocation. So love of animals is morally superior to love of family or children, tho with pets probably not by much.
Til We Have Faces ain't that bad either. I would enjoy a feminist reading of that book by someone not biased against Lewis.
I would enjoy a feminist reading of that book by someone not biased against Lewis.
I enjoyed the book, and generally enjoy Lewis in a 'writers who I don't worry about agreeing or disagreeing with, because we're so far apart it's not an issue' kind of way, but I can't think of what a feminist reading would be.
The thing about animals isn't that people's love for them is disinterested; it's that they have zero recourse and are completely at our mercy. Which is what makes maltreating them heinous. Kill them for meat, fine, but don't fucking be a sadist about it.
One of my favourite English history books is V.A.C. Gatrell's The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1700-1868. It has a description of the physiology of hanging that will keep you up nights (well, it kept me up, and gave me nightmares). Death by hanging is a seriously gruesome way to go: it's not quick, it's not clean, and it involves much anguish and suffering. The book also has a reprint of an 18th-century drawing/caricature of a dog being hanged.
117: I wonder if it had the story of the Hartlepool monkey? Reputedly hung when it was found after a shipwreck of a French ship during the Napoleonic wars.
Testing my internet connection, folks.
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals is also fascinating.
120: For real. It's so good that I never lose an opportunity to recommend it. From the OUP description:
Some thirty-five thousand people were condemned to death in England and Wales between 1770 and 1830, and seven thousand were ultimately executed, the majority convicted of crimes such as burglary, horse theft, or forgery. Mostly poor trades people, these terrified men and women would suffer excruciating death before large and excited crowds.
Drawing on letters, diaries, ballads, and poignant appeals for mercy, V.A.C. Gatrell vividly recreates the social atmosphere and heated debate swirling about these cruel spectacles. Gatrell illuminates the debate over public execution that raged in polite society, discussing the commentary of writers such as Boswell, Byron, Thackeray, and Dickens, most of whom deplored the behavior of the crowd more than the inhumanity of the sentence.
Johnson is in there too, and he comes off pretty well, making all due allowances for the different manners and mores of the time and etc, insofar as he had a sense of the magnitude of the thing. Also, lots of great anecdotage about famous/infamous highwaymen (nowadays we would call them "career criminals", I guess) who went to the scaffold determined to "die game". Which meant getting dressed up in one's very finest, and getting very drunk indeed.
Okay, you people can stop recommending interesting expensive books now, thanks.
You could get A Handbook on Hanging instead, for cheap.
Beats me. Never read it. Probably not.
B, you probably know this already, but Defoe's enormous General History of the Pyrates--available for free online somewhere, I'd guess--also includes a good number of fairly detailed accounts of hanging by the neck 'til dead. It's sometimes referred to as authored by Captain Charles Johnson.
I've actually thought about getting that for PK.....
It can be a bit dry and encyclopedic sometimes, but there's lots of good stuff, as well: cross-dressing female pirates, pirates holding satirical trials of themselves on desert islands, etc. It's one of my dissertation texts, in fact.
Well, he's enjoying (an admittedly abridged) Gulliver's Travels. So yeah, selfishly, I've been thinking of getting some Defoe and reading it to him, which lets me skip the boring parts.
Abebooks has a $15 copy of the hanging tree book:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1018955943&searchurl=sts%3Dt%26tn%3DThe%2BHanging%2BTree%253A%2BExecution%2Band%2Bthe%2BEnglish%2BPeople%26x%3D0%26y%3D0
I would enjoy a feminist reading of that book by someone not biased against Lewis.
To read Lewis is to become biased against him.
130: I've been thinking of getting some Defoe and reading it to him, which lets me skip the boring parts.
Good idea, then years later he can become rich and famous by writing:
A Journal of the Plague Year, written by a citizen who continued all the while in London (The 'Good Parts' Version).
I thought it had been determined that DeFoe did not in fact write the Pirates book?
In a different direction, Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle might be a good read-aloud for PK. It's about a twelve-year-old girl who witnesses a mutiny during a transatlantic crossing and is eventually put on trial for murder by the ship's captain. Since it's onboard a ship, there may be some cats/mice scenes that I am forgetting, so prescreening might be a good idea.
I grew up in a household where my dad butchered rabbits, ducks, chickens, etc. for meat, and as I recall, one of your earliest memories is watching your uncle butcher a lamb.
Gawd, that makes me hungry. I wonder if people would have been more forgiving of Vick if he had eaten the dogs he killed.
||
Has anyone read this insane story about some Dutch diplomats who adopted a baby in Korea 7 years ago and recently dumped her into foster care in Hong Kong because she wasn't taking to Dutch culture?
|>
To read Lewis is to become biased against him.
What does "bias" mean, anyway?
134: I'm not positive--I'm not writing on the General History just yet--but I thought that debate was still very much ongoing.
Has anyone read this insane story about some Dutch diplomats who adopted a baby in Korea 7 years ago and recently dumped her into foster care in Hong Kong because she wasn't taking to Dutch culture?
There was a very similar case in Ireland last year -- a couple adopted a kind from somewhere in Asia and then after a while decided that they didn't want it.
138: How the hell does a four-month old fail to adapt? Bastards.
good for the child's future to separate from those people
suppose they'd continue to live together without love for her
that would be torture for the girl
now life and future are open before her and surely she will become happy one day, gods bless her
and those people, they are earning their karma
142: Yeah, and she doesn't really speak Dutch. Doesn't sound like Mommy and Daddy spent much time with her. Gah.
140 cont.: So argues Schonhorn's 1999 edition, anyway.
Hey read, out of curiousity, which aimag are you from?
141
they didn't want it.
would you please watch your language
i'm from UB
my mother is from Govi-Altai, father is from Khentii, they met in the 60ies in UB
My family once hosted an exchange student for a year from Khentii (Darkhan Sum). That's pretty much all I know about Mongolia. I'm guessing she's about your age (born 1982).
I once knew a very beautiful model from Mongolia. (She was the girlfriend of a friend of a friend.) We got drunk and sang French pop songs.
When I read the recent NYT article which featured a couple that were taking the dog to visit 'his grandparents', my visceral reaction was a faint hope that they'd have one day, in a famine-stricken war zone, to eat their dog. My viscera are not nice.
Hahahaha. Me too Cala.
How about the apology with the paw print?
People who treat their dogs like children really can be irritating.
(Please do not mention this comment if my gf makes it to DC Unfogged!!!)
My dad went to Mongolia. He brought back a bunch of pictures painted on skins. We all thought they were very cool until we realized that most had some representation of a couple getting it on in some small corner of the painting. Oh well, so much for hanging up those pictures.
in Germany?
Darkhan sum i think is in Selenge
my father's from Binder, a birthplace of Chingis khaan btw
my mother's from Darvi, also legendary birthplace of Oelun, his mother
i sound that juvenile
should really learn english more like properly
in Germany?
No, contrary to popular perception, I grew up in the U.S.A.
The girl's name was Oyun/dari Erde/ne.
I once knew a very beautiful girl from Kyrgyzstan. Her father was in the cabinet at the time. It was always unclear how these people found their way to our extremely unfamous prep school.
Your English is great, read. Just don't do stuff like this.
sorry
but 43 is really my lucky number
so is 12 and 13
in my defence, people write
blogs
without punctuation and capitalization
though i'm not copying him :)
139:What does "bias" mean, anyway?
Just assuming Lewis is sexist & reactionary, and looking for confirming evidence and ignoring contradictory evidence. Til We Have Faces is a 1st person story of a benevolent tho probably Straussian Queen who hides permanently her ugly (her own perception) face behind a mask. She sacrifices, envies, destroys her beautiful sister. A retelling of Cupid & Psyche. Psychologically & spiritually complicated, with body-image such an important theme I assume feminists could look at it.
Certainly Lewis' best fiction, artistic enough (narrator tells same story twice) that I am not sure of all the intentions.
Hell, I don't understand the original myth.
There's a chance I may have introduced R.E.M. into Mongolia. True story. I was on the Trans-Siberian from Beijing in late December 1988, and a customs official at the Mongolian border was doing that "hanging out for a long time, looking through your stuff over and over, waiting for something" thing, so I gave him one of my cassettes. I think it was Murmur.
159
are you new to this site too? just i sense some kind of pause everytime you comment
it's because you are a revolutionary? :)
don't know about Lewis much
though can read his prose here
http://lib.ru/INPROZ/LUIS/
151:People who treat their dogs like children really can be irritating.
1) I don't believe in the soul, or any other qualitative objective between people & rocks.
2) Therefore I don't place any but a relative & calculated value on human life, based mostly on my personal heirarchy of values. Would I burn the Sistine Chapel to save Osama bin Laden or George W Bush? Fuck no. Grand Inquisitor or William James? Yeah torture the kid. I think.
3) I remain slightly socialized & human, and if asked to sacrifice an unknown random person or particular person, say ogged or PK, to save my dog (or sacrifice the dog to save), I would choose the human.
4) I eat meat. I do many irrational, hypocritical, or wicked things every day.
188
you earned some positive points to your karma
but 1988, it was before transition, i can't believe bribes were like popular at that time
may be you misunderstood that waiting for something pause
i can't believe bribes were like popular at that time
You may be right, but I'm told it was pretty common. And 'bribe' may be too strong a word; there was no sense of coercion, and he seemed genuinely happy to have it. I hope he liked it.
"And three years later, the post-Communist Mongolian parliament unanimously chose "Catapult" as the new national anthem. And now you know the rest of the story."
i remember January 10, 1989
it was the day of change, because of money devaluation, it became just paper
the end of socialism it was, and in the summer i believe the USSR collapsed, so our transition began months before russian's
instantly everything changed
you visited right before that
138: God, I wish I hadn't read that. It's too early in the day to be this angry.
There's a chance I may have introduced R.E.M. into Mongolia.
So awesome.
There's a chance I may have introduced R.E.M. into Mongolia.
There should be a movie about this, along the lines of The Gods Must be Crazy.
Read, keep commenting!
For a long time (up until 2 years ago) I hoped to go live in Mongolia and learn the language. I had two friends who spent time there in technical capacities: B/ob M/orris and S/teve K/osakoff. They both loved the place and people, though the weather was fierce. Other friends follow Mongol (actually Tuvan) music. I've also met some of the big Mongolia scholars at Bellingham (Schwarz, Buell, others I've forgotten).
I have spent a lot of time studying Genghis Khan, especially de rachewiltz's translation / commentary of the Secret History.
P.S. Unfoggedettes: I'm having the damnedest time commenting and don't know if it's my computer, my wireless, or dark Unfogged forces. So enjoy your break!
Re. Avi, I confess that I have avoided him so far because he has a one-word name, and the word is "Avi." I'm all, what kind of crazy-ass new age bullshit is this? But I will take the book under advisement despite my prejudice.
Also, PK has dictated that in all scenes where cats kill mice, the word "mice" shall be replaced with "rats."
Re. people treating dogs as kids vs. people abandoning adopted infants--see, if people were taught more firmly as children that you DO NOT ABANDON PETS just because they are inconvenient, then there'd be less abandoning of adopted children in the world.
Don't question this theory of mine, just accept it.
How do you do, John Emerson!
i read your blog, very interesting
so you know about Mongolia more than i do
have you read L.N. Gumilev's works?
i am not sure about his antisemitism
but about mongols i think he was pretty objective
http://members.tripod.com/~Gumilevica/Books.htm
it's all in russian, i don't know whether there are english translations or not
Also on that train I met a guy with the most amazing language abilities I've ever encountered. In addition to his native Japanese, he spoke Hungarian (he was on his way to reunite with his Hungarian wife), Mongolian (used to live in UB), Chinese and English, all fluently. Probably in his early 30s.
Jesus, I'm on for the 26th until further notice. My effing email doesn't work either.
Requests: do you have anything which includes the musica ficta version of a Renaissance piece alongside the "straight" version? Preferably accompanied by something textual I could buy explaining it?
I have a copy of Gumilev. It's frustrating for me because all his references are to Russian, which I don't read. Khazanov is the one who accuses him of anti-Semitism. I haven't seen that. He certainly has a great pedigree (son of the poet Akhmatovna).
Guys, I'm having terrible trouble posting. I have to log off Unfogged and log back on between posts. Hope this gets fixed. I can't even blame Bill Gates because I'm on a Mac.
153 Your english is a hell of a lot better than my Mongolian, I'll tell you what. Probably better than all of the rest of the Mineshaft's Mongolian put together, for that matter.
Hope your posting troubles soon pass, Emerson.
Allairefictamusic.com has some transcriptions of modal polyphonic music. Is that what you mean? I thought that musica ficta could not be strictly notated, because it was improvised by the performers.
John, I've got a fair bit of 12th-16th c. polyphony, but I doubt any of it includes different versions of the same piece; there aren't that many ensembles recording that repertoire, and AFAIK they tend to follow the same performance practice. I do have some of the 15-16th c. English works (Fayrfax/Sheppard/Tye) with the kind of harmonic burrs that come from integrating non-major/minor modes into polyphonic structures, but I'm not sure if that's the kind of thing you're after.
for John Emerson, hope you'll like it
warrior song
Belatedly:
Avi, I confess that I have avoided him so far because he has a one-word name, and the word is "Avi." I'm all, what kind of crazy-ass new age bullshit is this? But I will take the book under advisement despite my prejudice.
A generally sound and reliable prejudice it is, to be sure. I'm a little surprised to hear it from a Californian.
Another one worth reading is Nothing But the Truth, which can be a little didactic but is mostly a political novel about a teenager who stirs up a national brouhaha by getting suspended for humming along to the national anthem. Probably not for PK for a few more years, though -- he might be bored.
I'm a little surprised to hear it from a Californian.
Honey, I'm from the *central valley*. We're more Free Republic than Kumbaya, I tell you what.
That due who came up with the "Csheirinking "child pet-gap" tghing must b e an poster of unfogged b/c he quotes ""[Sheffield] also says that he never took steroids because 'the bottom line is steroids is something you stick in your butt -- period.'""
That was interesting, Read. I even picked out a word here or there, mostly "sain" and "Chinggis".
What's the story? It looks a bit too Japanese in the costuming.
I also followed the other links to the Mongolian pop. Far from my favorite style, but well done, I think. And the beauty contests were nice too.
that was a rap song
about difficult destiny of a mongolian warrior who had to die in his 20ies building the empire etc
trailer's from S. Bodrov's film Mongol
people criticised a lot that film that it is not historically accurate
found it
http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=901&Itemid=42