Internal Monologue

UPDATE: Douglas Hofstadter contributes to the discussion of this pressing issue! New post coming shortly. Here it is! When other artists cover Bo Diddley 's song "Bo Diddley" should they actually sing the words "Bo Diddley" or should they substitute their own name? I sort of think they should use their own name. Part of the charm/weirdness of this song is that it's about the singer himself, and that he refers to himself in the third person. If you're singing about somebody else, it changes the whole nature of the song. Here are the lyrics : Bo Diddley bought his babe a diamond ring, If that diamond ring don't shine, He gonna take it to a private eye, If that private eye can't see He'd better not take the ring from me. Bo Diddley caught a nanny goat, To make his pretty baby a Sunday coat, Bo Diddley caught a bear cat, To make his pretty baby a Sunday hat. Mojo come to my house, ya black cat bone, Take my baby away from home, Ug

A social worker laments : As I contemplate how to pry a few dollars from these systems designed to humiliate and degrade my clients, already struggling with being social outcasts, chronic illness, drug addiction and mental illness I sigh audibly. I read of billion dollar bailouts and disappearing pallettes of cash as I ponder how to help a family with $400.00 so they will not be homeless in three days. I am so very tired. We are not very caring as a nation. I want that to change. And as for stimulating the economy: nobody spends money faster than someone who needs to pay the rent to avoid getting kicked out of their home. The bank bailout has been severely hampered by the fact that the banks are often just sitting on the funds and not telling anyone what they're doing with them. Our priorities are completely out of whack, and our politics barely begins to address our needs as a nation. Obama, as far as I can tell, is only a small step in the right direction. Must there be massive

Once upon a time there was a little boy. The little boy loved his birthday because he didn't have to do any chores and he got lots of presents and everyone did nice things for him. The little boy loved his birthday so much that he tricked God into making it his birthday every day. The little boy was so happy: every day was his birthday and he lived happily like a prince. But the little boy died of old age in less than three months, and God was like "Ha ha ha ha!"

I'm 35 years old today. If anything, I feel I've aged more than one year this year: I started a full time job for the first time in over 7 years, and we discovered that Quinn had fragile X syndrome. It's been very hard, but I think we've all grown a lot. One bit of evidence I offer for this is that the holidays have actually not been particularly difficult for us this year. Once you've been trained in caring-for-special-needs-kids boot camp, other sorts of domestic obligations do not loom as large. I got some great presents, and I have a surprise outing this afternoon, and steak dinner tonight. Yum! Thanks so much to my wonderful wife Sarah and all my family for contributing to birthday wonderfulness!

One of the first South Park cartoons ever. Still one of the best.

" The Datsun and the Shoe Tree ": I was changing planes at the new airport in Jakarta the other day, on the way to Stockholm from Vladivostok. Three young Bangladeshi boys sat in the passenger lounge, watching The Power Rangers on satellite TV. Their mother--garbed in the traditional sari--talked to her cousin, a migrant worker who sold German-designed Walkman knockoffs in Hong Kong, on a shiny new Samsung cell phone. Sitting to one side of them was a young Chinese émigré on his way to Toronto to work for a software company, and on the other a business-suited Rastafarian making a connection to Bratislava. Meanwhile, a couple of Tuareg tribesmen sat cross-legged in front of the ticket counter, cooking yams over a flaming mound of ticket stubs. What's my point? I don't actually have one--but opening my columns with strings of clichéd cultural juxtapositions really cuts down my workload. via liberal on Balloon Juice . I've actually enjoyed reading Friedman, but