Hey grumpy, have a tater.

Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar, or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters from the Treasury Department in recent months.

"A story, a poem, an article on history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics, or any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if submitted in English, cannot be edited in the U.S.. This means that the publication of the PEN Anthology of Contemporary Persian Literature that I have been editing for the last three years would constitute aiding and abetting the enemy."

Oh boy I just love my bitchin’ new{{popup mybitchinroom.jpg mybitchinroom 850×310}} free couch.

Da’ek teleyfoon methta’naanaak, pquud. Guudaapaw!
is Aramaic for
Please turn off your mobile phone. It is blasphemous.

Tuesday would be the 100th birthday of Theo Geisel, aka Dr Seuss. He was the author of many children’s book that were widely read and loved throughout most of the English-speaking world. They are famous for their flippity slip nimble playful use of language.

However, Geisel had several careers before that, one as an editorial cartoonist, and another making propaganda films for the army during and after WWII.
It is perhaps these experiences which influenced him to give many of his children’s books such important morals dealing with the likes of anti-fascism, bigotry, enviromentalism, and civic duty. My favorite was Hop on Pop.
Here is one of said cartoons. I picked this one out because it is the one I find most unsettling and seemingly out-of-step with an otherwise rather liberal Seuss.
Listen to story

Incidentally, for my non-German speaking Readers, Geisel is German for “hostage”.
That reminds me, yesterday I went to the see Das Fliegende Klassenzimmer, the old one from ’54. K?stner plays himself. What a cute little film.

And under other miscellany: a Reuters story about how them old nursury rhymes are actually full of
naughty bits.

The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums – Peter
De Vries

The Flash video for Autumn is going to be really cool, if I ever find the time to finish it.

It’s Karl May’s birthday, so here are some pics from English Club’s KM Museum visit a few weeks ago.
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Happy 70th B-Day, Ralph. But maybe you coulda waited til your 74th?

Crazy-ass rabbit thinks your mouse is a carrot. Very sharp. I squealed with delight. It’s Flash.