Mr. T. Versus Roomba

[substitute]

Wow, Kurt Vonnegut has become a complete asshole instead of just an overrated writer.

In other news emacs is a Jewish plot.

There's also a problem with Brent Spiner (mp3 with an html mime type, kind of a pain).

Comments

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, he has a beautiful voice! I would never have guessed. (Having just revealed my fatal weakness for tenors, I back away slowly.)

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Uhoh. I just went and read the Kurt Vonnegut one. Um, I happen to think he has a point. You don't think there's a single brave idealist blowing himself up in that conflict?

[substitute.livejournal.com]

The damage that assorted brave idealists with explosives have done in the last century is incalculable. I support brave unarmed idealists.

Vonnegut

[torgo-x.livejournal.com]

My brilliant brilliant theory about WWII is that everyone who lived thru it became stupider, individually and collectively. The only thing the US learned from WWII was the delusion that it didn't need to learn anything.

[createdestiny.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Well, I don't think Vonnegut's comments make him a complete asshole, especially in light of the new torture allegations.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Praising asshole suicide bombers is no better than praising asshole torturers.

[so-gracefully.livejournal.com]

i think that vonnegut article was written in an EXTREMELY biased voice, which is really disappointing. i think he's just at a very extreme point of cultural relativism, one that maybe not everyone can approve of. i don't think he was saying at any point, "suicide bombing is okay" or "hooray suicide bombers", but he was saying that there IS a reason that these people do what they do, and that everything has more than one side to it.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

In the actual interview, Vonnegut says in his discussion of the suicide bombers that it is "sweet and honorable to die" for something one believes in. The odd part is that he's quoting Horace's "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" there.

Which, as a literary man, he must be aware has been totally answered, fully and finally, by Wilfred Owen:

http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/Dulce.html

The interviewer is indeed hostile, but unless Vonnegut has a good refutation of it, he seems to be in Horace's camp. I'm with Owen.

full interview:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17256664%255E16947,00.html

[so-gracefully.livejournal.com]

yes, i realize you already have your mind made up about it.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

As do you.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's some mistake - this doesn't jibe with other things he has said. So either he's senile or grotesquely misquoted or they didn't realize he was being sarcastic.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The differential diagnosis is between senile, misquoted, drunk, insane, or so egotistical and tapped-out that the attention is all that matters.

But that Horace quote, that quote. Damn.

[fimmtiu.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that Horace was himself a wuss who dropped his shield and fled for his life the first time he saw a serious battle, at Philippi. Ah, irony.

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

Vonnegut's always been fascinated by oblivion. Sometimes just plain old suicide. But he's also written of a sort of ecstasy that comes from devoting oneself to goodness that does not require thought, like cleaning, or being a volunteer fireman. Plus, I think he doesn't like Bush.