MINUTIA AND INCONSEQUENTIA
- Good news, folks! The Illuminati finally got off their asses and set up an official website! Yer old pal Jerky has already looked into it for you, and I gotta say, it seems pretty legit. They're even selling this really snazzy black wooden pyramid thingy (pictured below) with three metal pendants hidden inside. At $70 per unit, enlightenment has never been so affordable!
- The offices of VICE have always reputedly been the scene of cocaine-fueled bacchanalia, but finding out former VICE Canada music editor Yaroslav "Slava Pastuk" Pastukhov used his influential position to coerce employees, interns, and young musicians into serving as drug mules for an international drug smuggling cartel? That's just... well... actually, nah. That's totally the kind of thing I always figured was going on behind the scenes there.
- Neil Freeman has put together a beautiful map of the United States as redrawn with entirely new states, each of which has a population of roughly six million people. It's his way of dealing with the increasingly untenable problems associated with the electoral college. It also has the added benefit of being quite lovely, with evocative place names and a certain je ne sais quoi.
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SUGGESTED READINGS
1. Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the Fifty Greatest Progressive Rock Albums of All Time is an odd thing. On the one hand, it's a weird list, with some unforgivable omissions and a bunch of entries that, in yer old pal Jerky's opinion, don't really qualify as progressive rock... and I'm pretty loose and inclusive when it comes to prog! On the other hand, it's a great, eclectic bunch of albums, and brings attention to some very deserving and little known acts. So if you're interested in becoming a prog rock connoisseur (and who isn't these days?) this list should serve as a more than decent jumping off point.
2. All you foodies out there who love to indulge in “rare” and unique foods and delicacies that you can only get in certain parts of the world, sometimes only at certain times of year… please allow me to introduce the humble Madawaska ploye! The ploye is an extra special, hearty crepe (fancy talk for unflipped pancake) made with a special kind of buckwheat flour found only in the northwest panhandle of New Brunswick, and in nearby, neighboring regions in the US state of Maine and the Canadian province of Quebec... but not too deep into either! Yer old pal Jerky grew up eating these savory, spongy, dark yellow ployes, usually with a slathering of butter and a shmear of "cretons", which is another Madawaska delicacy, a fatty meat spread akin to head cheese, but a lot more... grey. It ain't pretty, but it's tasty. You can also eat them with molasses or maple syrup, if you have a sweet tooth.
3. Whenever yer old pal Jerky's academic background in Philosophy comes up, people are always full of questions. What is it, exactly, that's being studied? What qualifies one thinker as a philosopher and another as, say, a literary essayist? or a political scientist? or a critic of some sort? Doesn't anybody who lives by a credo, in effect, practice philosophy? Well friends, those of you who'd like to learn more about what it is, exactly, that philosophy students study, are in luck, because Wheaton College has generously made available the entirety of Professor Arthur Holmes' influential 81-lecture course, "A History of Philosophy", on Youtube, kicking things off with "Part One: The Beginning of Greek Philosophy", in which he comes to grips with some influential pre-Socratics:
This, my friends, is the good stuff, and indicative of the amazing things that the Internet is capable of. If you were to dedicate just an hour per day to the study of the history of philosophy, simply by watching Professor Holmes' course and taking notes while you do, you'd be finished in under three months! And you'd have a university-caliber introduction to the foundations of Western civilization under your belt. Furthermore, yer old pal Jerky guarantees that, if you take this course and make a good faith effort to understand it, a lot of things will, all of a sudden, make a lot more sense to you. In fact, I've been thinking of using Professor Holmes' course as the basis for a new, experimental website of sorts... an interactive sort of thing. Anyway, keep your eyes on this space for news!
This, my friends, is the good stuff, and indicative of the amazing things that the Internet is capable of. If you were to dedicate just an hour per day to the study of the history of philosophy, simply by watching Professor Holmes' course and taking notes while you do, you'd be finished in under three months! And you'd have a university-caliber introduction to the foundations of Western civilization under your belt. Furthermore, yer old pal Jerky guarantees that, if you take this course and make a good faith effort to understand it, a lot of things will, all of a sudden, make a lot more sense to you. In fact, I've been thinking of using Professor Holmes' course as the basis for a new, experimental website of sorts... an interactive sort of thing. Anyway, keep your eyes on this space for news!
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
"The news is currently that spinning image of a newspaper, but it never stops spinning."
DDD EXTRAS
Our sister-site, the Useless Eater Blog, continues to provide you with all the low-down nitty-gritty on all the strange and savage goings on in the world of humans being human beings! Like for instance that time Savonarola made a bonfire out of all those vanities. Did you know that happened on this day, back in 1497? Hard to believe it was so long ago, isn't it? Ah well... such is life.
it was really nice not to read about that american idiot today. thanks for the link to the intro to philosophy. i'll be looking into it.
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