Word Salad

“The food is free, you just have to pay for the land and pay the farmers.”

“That’s where fruit and vegetable comes from.”

I kind of envy the ability to keep babbling non stop even whilst having no coherent ideas to express.

It’s inadvertent performance art.

LOL. Stunning.

Pity, I think, is the proper response; especially since her grandkids will be able to view this file.

“I really believe it can be a California thing…”
Oh, it is, sweetie. It is…

Difficult to be sure at this remove but her self-care seems quite good.Remarkable.

Stupid doesn’t recognize geographic or political boundries. Eistein had a quote to the effect that while genius was a limited commodity stupidity has no constraints. As true today as it was the day he said it.
Ladies and gentleman … I give you Miss South Carolina!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII

“Oh come on. Not fair.”
Ungentlemanly, maybe. But hardly unfair.
“It runs from about 7.08 until about 23.55.”
Er, what does?

“I give you Miss South Carolina!”
David, maybe you should make “Word Salad” a regular thing…

Horace,
I’m too tired to endure Broadcasting House in its entirety; I usually need two mugs of Hot Lava Java to get through Radio 4. I may have a listen tomorrow.
Anna,
“…maybe you should make ‘Word Salad’ a regular thing…”
Submissions are always welcome. We could offer a prize or something.

I was drawn to its, er, Dadaist aesthetic.

Stoner economics?

Horace,
I listened to the programme. I’m not sure which bit you want me to comment on.
There’s the confused humanities student who’s “proud” of her accent and yet convinced it makes her sound unserious. (I don’t think her accent is the problem on that front, though when people say “fings” instead of “things” it doesn’t exactly conjure gravitas.)
Roy “Lord” Hattersley is still a mean and disingenuous windbag. As usual, he seems a bit confused and is all too willing to distort views that diverge from his own. He claims to be in favour of people with talent escaping from humble origins and fulfilling their potential – an admirable goal. But he vehemently opposes grammar schools and selective education, which were key means of achieving that end until he and his egalitarian colleagues did away with most of them – supposedly in the interests of “fairness”. (Hattersley is of course a beneficiary of precisely the kind of education he wants to deny to others.)
He says he wants people with ability and drive to overcome their backgrounds, but he doesn’t like the word “escape” and he wants a “massive programme of redistribution” – i.e. distribution *away* from people who manage to do exactly as he says. Hattersley doesn’t seem to grasp the contradictions of his own worldview. If you want talent to be expressed and rewarded (wherever it comes from), efforts to impose a “more equal society” will tend to be in conflict with that goal. Those who escape from humble backgrounds will generally be inclined to pass on any advantages to their own children. Such is human nature. But this offends Hattersley and he wants to put a stop to it. It doesn’t seem to occur to Hattersley that bright working class people, about whom he claims to care, might view him as both a fool and an enemy.

“Hattersley wants bright working class kids to do well in life –so long as they don’t make too much money or pass on any advantages to their kids.”
In a nutshell, yes. Hattersley’s conception of “fairness” is directly opposed to the interests of conscientious parents – which is to say, parents who want to do the best for their children. And parents who remember their own humble origins may be *particularly* keen to do that. Yet in Hattersley’s formulation they become some kind of class enemy.

“He is the enemy of any working-class person who wants to do well or for their children to succeed.”
It’s slightly disturbing to think that this pompous, dribbling old Stalinist was once in government. He claims to dislike elitism yet he wants to control what others may do with their own money and how they may help their own children. Because, naturally, he knows best. Which suggests he quite likes elitism, provided it’s authoritarian elitism and he’s the elite.
Same old, same old.

Does she suffer from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect ??
Hattersley’s not against elitism, he’s against meritocracy. Probably because he correctly assumes he’d be nowhere without nepotism.

It’s not the economy, stupid.
It’s the stupid, stupid.
Wow. California has a $26 billion budget deficit and we wonder why? It’s clearly because they’ve not invented the perfect pesticide for their vegetable trees.
And the silkworms. THE SILKWORMS!

“he quite likes elitism”
He dines (or at least used to) regularly at the Gay Hussar in Soho. I have seen their prices, and it is hardly the haunt of the working man.

In another example of “teh stupid” – Ace posted this a couple of days ago.
Apparently we only used to see rainbows created by the Sun and Moon, but now a combination of garden sprinklers and “metal oxide salts oozing out of the ground” are creating new forms of super-rainbow that we have never seen before….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sq-VmBMHkw
I’m wondering what the heck is in our water supply and our oxygen supply too…..

She should be Jay Leno’s Battle of the Jaywalk Allstars!

David
Thank you. I introduced the Broadcasting House clip because it struck me that it covered territory that interests you (reference your posts on Annabelle Weir etc). And because I felt it might be more deserving of your analytical wit than the “hippie” clip shown here. Not that it is for me to choose the editorial direction for your blog, but I am grateful that instead of damning me for my impertinence you described Roy Hattersley as a “dribbling old Stalinist”. That’s why I come here, I suppose. In truth, though, I was bewildered by Hattersley’s contribution to the programme, which made little sense. And I was vexed by the interviewer who seemed content to allow his blithering. Hattersley to me came across as being reactionary and misanthropic. Some of your regular contributors here would probably say “well, that’s socialism for you”, and probably they’d be right.
But to get back ON topic, I understand why Wayne Fontes disagreed with me. But I’m not sure that the hippie lady makes me despair of democracy. Perhaps she highlights one of democracy’s weak points, but we know that those weak points exist, so in that sense she shows that democracy is at least in action.

guys, seriously, this intelligent young woman is allowed to speak her mind dont be an asshole.
she makes some pretty good points
but seriously, wtf is wrong with her? i want to find out who she is so i could kill her, right after i buy some more slaves