Can I Get an Amen?

Is there a correct way to install a roll of toilet paper?  The issue has been settled by Science.   No, not that way.  Not that way either.

The piece of the puzzle that was missing was discovered by a team of researchers at the University of Helsinki¹ and it's a stunner.  How do you install of a roll of toilet paper?  It depends. 

"How could it possibly depend?" you ask.  "Just put the damn thing on the wall."  Well, here's where you'd be wrong.  You must first collect and assess data about the situation.  The crucial datum is this: the distance in arm's length of the dispenser from the (you should pardon the expression) toilet.  If the dispenser is less than an arm's length -- that is, if you must bend your arm to reach it, then the toilet paper must go with paper coming down behind the roll.  You can therefore most easily engage the dispensing of toilet paper by batting the roll in the same upward motion with which you raise your hand.  At the desired length, you can swiftly tear it off with one hand using the bulk of the roll itself as the counterweight that holds everything in place long enough for the perforation to separate the dispensed length from the roll.²  If, however, the arm must be fully extended to reach the dispenser, then the paper must be installed with the length of it coming down the front of the roll. This way, a downward bat at the roll is the most efficient way to apply the force necessary to initiate dispensing.

Try this at home.  As always, wear safety goggles and ask an adult first.

You're welcome.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Footnotes:

1 Look it up.

 2 The Helskinki researchers identified a possible exception to this rule: when the dispenser is installed  too close for the arm to be bent comfortably,  at an angle requiring an uncomfortable contortion of the wrist for retrieval of the paper, preliminary study indicates that the optimal positioning could be over the top and down the front, but there is some indication that it could be better to remove the roll from the dispenser altogether and hold it in your lap in this case, or better still to abstain from use of the toilet until the dispenser is moved to permit comfortable flexing of the arm. However, as I say, this is inconclusive and the researchers advise caution in making exceptions to the 2-pronged decision tree discussed in the article.

People's Freedom Suspended

Image from hvg.hu

Publication of the largest opposition newspaper in Hungary, Népszabadság, was suspended Saturday, less than one week after a government-supported anti-immigration referendum failed to attract the constitutionally mandated minimum of 50% of eligible voters to the polls, and days after the paper had broken stories of corruption on the part of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff and the head of the central bank.  Workers at the paper only learned of the suspension Saturday morning when they arrived to find the doors of the building locked against them.

In the press release that readers of the online version were redirected to this morning, the reason for the suspension was described as one of economics, but the journalists at the paper have characterized the move understandably as a "Putsch".   The paper was recently purchased by an Austrian group that is suspected to have ties with friends of the government who have been busily acquiring newspapers of late.

The bad news is that this brings the increasingly autocratic (and distinctly familiar from an American perspective in the Fall of 2016) Orbán closer to complete control over the press in Hungary.  The good news is, much as it happened 2 years ago in response to a clumsy attempt on the part of Orbán to raise the tax on internet use, a large, spontaneous protest materialized in the streets of Budapest.

The protest against the internet tax succeeded in causing Orbán to retreat from his plan.  It remains to be seen if today's protest will culminate in a similar stay of execution for Népszabadság in particular and press freedom beyond that, but it is almost a certainty in light of the Prime Minister's pattern of behavior that this will not be the last outrage.
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Schmenterprise

The entrepreneur has a place in a capitalist society.  That place is to make things or supply services that would otherwise be time-consuming, expensive and, in this day and age, ridiculous for others to produce or perform themselves.  It's perfectly legitimate and in my experience a generally fine function.

It has downsides.  As one who has no intention of learning how to hunt, cultivate, sew, cobble, or set bone breaks, I acknowledge that I am at the mercy of the tastes and standards of strangers for my wants and needs, and it's a weird fact that I have higher standards than that.  It's just not a priority of mine to live up to them.

Being able to afford a stranger's idea of what I should eat and wear has also forced me into a lifetime of prostitution.

Nevertheless, I recognize that while the profit motive cannot be overlooked as a major weakener of standards in the marketplace of goods and services, it is also a primary reason that entrepreneurs exist; that I can therefore afford to take advantage of their offerings; and that I can spend the abundant leisure time I have crafting moan sessions about entrepreneurs to a great extent because I don't have to spend it harvesting beets or mending wagon spokes.

I like entrepreneurs.  I like what they do for a living.  I like that I don't have to do it.  They deserve a nice firm handshake and a pat on the back for it.  The problem is, my patronage and general gratitude just isn't enough for some of them.  A lot of them actually.

No, they want to cram down my throat that they are the dreamers and doers, the engine, fuel and drivers of civilization, the best of the best, doing god's work.  To this I say, just give me your 3-pack of Malaysian-made underpants and shut the hell up.

We all need a little boost of the ego from time to time.  But consider the size of the average corporation's public relations budget. Now compare it to your own.  Is it just me or is this self-aggrandizement more than a little needy?

And what exactly is the need?  They own everything. But because they own everything, maybe you will give them exactly what they want for what you need.  The more you need it, the more they want to exact from you in exchange for it.  If you don't want it, they have spent tidy sums on the science of making you dream of it.  If rather than want a thing, you truly need it, someone among their class has bought it all up and made damn sure you will bleed for it.

On deep consideration, I think the need is nothing less than self-preservation.  Getting its preferred associations about itself into your head before you've had a chance to think anything about it is the corporation's way of increasing the odds that you and your fellow ovines will not formulate your own opinions, because those opinions, will inevitably lead to a desire to restore balance-- possibly through persuasion and open discussion; but possibly through any means necessary.  Because contrary to the corporate propaganda about corporations, the more you think of them, the less you think of them.

I see a 2 step process to restoring a modicum of justice for our subjection at the hands of the entrepreneurs.  First, we have to make being among the consumers and their comrades the under-consumers a very very uncomfortable place for the Entrepreneurs to be.  Let them be the masters of their own world but trembling doofuses in ours.  We have to learn to respond reflexively precisely in a manner befitting those whose status has been imposed upon them by treachery and trickery and force toward subjugators who for far too long have enjoyed ease and status on our backs.

Second, we have got to find a way to bring them into our midst.

Nuff sed

Semi-Public Service

For me, language study is enhanced by the exploration of music.  I've been studying Romanian lately, and consequently this has been a summer of Romanian sounds.  There will undoubtedly be future posts on that topic, but as long-time readers of this blog know, Hungarian maintains a strong hold on me.  I'm studying Hungarian pretty much by accident because 3 years ago, my daughter found for me on the shelves of a used book store we were browsing in a $3 tome called Colloquial Hungarian by Arthur H. Whitney (Routledge, 1944).  So I'm keenly aware of how improbable it is that I know anything at all about Hungarian, let alone the Hungarian music scene.  And to know anything at all about the Hungarian music scene is, for me, to feel an intense anxiety and urgency about spreading the news to the non-Hungarian-speaking corners of the earth.

This week, the Hungarian band Stopsonic released a new video for the song Insane off of their 2016 EP, Jewel Hunter.  (To make it yours, you'll need to name your price for it in Forints on the bandcamp.com website. [Update: As of October, the EP is available on iTunes as well.])  As with many Hungarian bands who undoubtedly want to be heard beyond the borders of their landlocked country, Stopsonic sings in English.  The mood of the new song, and as it turns out the EP, is one I have a weakness for: a bit trancy, atmospheric, layered, sexy, with a beat you can dance to.  I was hooked immediately. As for the video filmed in an appropriately angsty black and white, it took me several hundred views to figure out that the drab and ordinary urban American setting was Honolulu.

But I wasn't prepared for the thrill I found in the video for the title track of the EP, screenshots of which illustrate this post.  If the song Insane and the video for it are right up my alley, the song and video for Jewel Hunter is up the alley, through the back door, up the secret passageway to the attic and implanted in my brain.

The video for Insane, as of this writing, 4 days into its release, already has almost 12,000 views (and only 20 of them are mine).   We're not talking the kind of splash that, say, a new Katy Perry tune makes these days-- even a substandard one if you can imagine that (frankly I can)-- but for a nation of 13 million people, 12,000 views for an alternative music track is portentous of big things.

The video for Jewel Hunter-- both videos are the work of a Mr. Frank Rizzo with a credit to the frontwoman of the band, Zsuzsa Varga-- has been out since April and as of this moment has exactly 1900 views (500 of them mine).   Hence my anxiety.  As a very small public (or whatever arena this forum is in) service then, I present to you, Jewel Hunter.  Enjoy responsibly:

Bosszúdal

The amazing Annamária Oláh with her band Fókatelep present to you a nice little Song of Revenge.   (Courtesy of Petőfi Rádió)

At dawn, they come

I do not want to get up.

Carried over the bridge,

I do not want to sing.

Farewell, the sound of music

Farewell, clear blue lake.

Visznek is already far from here.

My feet in shackles.

Visznek is far away from you.

Carried across the road,

The sun is like a blade,

Well sweeps accompany me on my way.

They and mirages.

Not worth a cool hand on my lips.

I cannot find peace of mind.

They told me not to look for you.

They warned me in advance.

They told me not to love you

because it would bring trouble.

Is boundless prayer futile?
Is boundless prayer futile?

My heart is a wounded bird,

in inconsolable throes.

At dawn, they come.

I do not want to get up.

Carried over the bridge,

I do not want to sing.

Farewell, the sound of music.

Farewell, clear blue lake.

Visznek is already far from here,

My feet in shackles.

But... once I come back,

I will find you,

And return your fire.

And then it will be too late to grieve

And you'll be weeping,

The wailing woman.

I'll pour poison on your skin,

And it will have its effect.

~~~~~~~

And to wash the stain of rancor from your heart:

Prithee

If you believe that end times are imminent and that this is a good thing, why are you voting? Seriously, what heavenly good can be accomplished by placing a ballot in an earthly election.   I'm not disputing your conviction that Judgment Day is at hand. Who am I to "judge"?  But I'm not going to Heaven.  Your time is eternal.  My time is short. Are you trying to change an outcome that is already written in the Book of Heaven or are you just screwing around? Let's face it, your vote will accomplish nothing in the long game other than to throw an obstacle into the path of this sinner's short-lived self-delusional happiness in this vale of tears. It's spiteful, really. Isn't it? Please, on election day, have mercy, stay home and let the hell-bound enjoy a moment of rejoicing.

Or maybe you're not really all that serious about this religion thing.