Little Running Bear

We have a special relationship.

Even Leo Rosten’s “The New Joys of Yiddish,” whose earlier edition is used by many as an authority on spelling Yiddish words commonly used in America, throws its hands up in surrender: “The proper transliteration of this festival’s name remains one of the great mysteries of modern Jewish life,” it says.

from ‘Some Say Spelling of a Winning Word Wasn’t Kosher’ in the New York Times.

There is no correct way to spell a transliterated word. I’ve always spelt the festival “Chanukah” although I say “ħanukeh”. Yiddish has so many dialects that I have rarely heard two people speak the same way.

My zajda was from a different part of Europe to my teachers at Sholem Aleichem College. I ended up with a confused pronunciation based on who managed to get the word in my brain first.

I remember a teacher in prep or grade 1 trying to get me to pronounce the Yiddish word for chicken soup the same way she did. I refused. To this day it is “yo-eħ” and will never be “yoiħ” as long as it comes from my lips and tongue.

Yiddish pronunciation is a lot like chicken soup: everybody’s grandmother did it the best way.

On the other hand, the spelling of transliterated words is only correct if the person reading it can approximate the same sounds out loud. Therefore knaidel, kneidel and kneydl are all correct enough as long as they are not too dense and add a decent mouth-feel to the yoech.

Trying to establish new habits is hard. A few weeks ago I sat down with a notebook and tried to plan out my days.

I was going to dedicate a certain amount of time to work, exercise, personal administration, writing and preparing for my podcast. It was a great plan.

But plans fail all the time. Usually they fail because we forgot to take into account a constraint or requirement. In my case I lied to myself about how tired I was likely to be, or, how disproportionate my exhaustion would be to my motivation.

Often it’s important to realise that we’ve planned poorly and we need to do it again.

My thesis for the next plan is that I was trying to do too much. Maybe I need to continue incidental administration while keeping an exercise regime. Maybe I need to work out what is more pertinent before I commit to a change.

That might be the hardest part:working out which aspect I want to improve more.

Building good habits requires honesty about what is actually best for me and what can wait until later.

And honesty is hard.

Revisionism in small doses is as evil as large-scale revisionism because it creates an acceptable minimum level.

iTunes used to show album art in what it calls “Songs View”. That feature was removed and now it can do it again.

That’s not an improvement. It’s a return to form.

It’s easy to continually make improvements if we make things worse first.

“Remember when I crashed your car and you couldn’t drive it? Well, I had the panel beater improve it for you.”

Also, I expect consistency from Apple. “View” either is part of the name of the view or it’s not. If it is, then it always takes a capital.

As I say, beware the small evils and the lack of attention to detail. They are a bad sign of future habits.

They are not going to form themselves, nor will their importance dissipate through stubbornly ignoring the reason for creating them.

Nothing happens by magic. Nothing happens through inspiration. Everything exists because of time spent and work applied.

The more you do something, the more it will become a part of your day. If you fall over one hurdle you have to start the whole race again. So be vigilant.

If that sounds like hard work and you don’t want to do it, you’re in the wrong business. No matter what business you’re in, it’s the wrong one.

I hate excuses.

This morning I didn’t do exercise because I didn’t know where my apple earbuds were. So I lay in bed because “How can I be expected to run if I don’t have earbuds?”

So this afternoon I bought myself earbuds. Cost me $35 and some time.

Fuck me and my bullshit excuses.

Excuses are the way of the fat fuck who won’t change despite all the evidence for and expressed desire to change.

If I remove the excuses, all that I’m left with is the task or the truth about my ugly laziness.

The thing about laziness is that it is a choice. The thing about truth is that we have to live with it.

Then it just becomes about choosing the truth we would much rather live with.

I bought myself earbuds and I will try again tomorrow because I know which truth I’d prefer to live with.

You can’t spell “excuse” without “shutthefuckup”.

What the fuck happened here?… We’re sorry, but everyone who voted for them in this poll is wrong.

via ‘Readers Poll: The Ten Worst Bands of the Nineties Pictures – 5. Nirvana’—Rolling Stone.

I like that Rolling Stone can call bullshit on its own readers’ poll.

In the video featured on ABC’s news report ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its a Skywhale’, Centenary of Canberra creative director Robyn Archer says:

As far as I can tell, it’s probably the first time in the world that an artist has been commissioned to make a balloon; a legitimate, genuine artist.

Now, there is good art and bad art, there’s dilettante art and professional art, but is there such a thing as legitimate and illegitimate art?

There is genuine art but are there genuine artists?

Robyn Archer has been in the art world for too long to not know how to speak about the topic.

“We have paid additional Medicare levy, flood levy (because we earn too much) and now they expect us to pay more in Medicare levy. However, we will not be entitled to get anything from a disability scheme because we are over 60”.[sic]

A news.com.au reader quoted in Matt Young’s portion of the article ‘Would you pay $300 to support the disabled?’ on News.com.au.

Yes, reader over 60 years old. You’re not entitled to anything from the NDIS but you were entitled to free tertiary education and affordable home ownership.

You are currently entitled to discounts on everything from privately subsidised movie tickets to government subsidised public transport. As you get older and require more medical attention, that will also come to you for free or heavily subsidised, either way, through taxation.

The rest of us are subsidising your existence in so many ways. You know what? Disabled people with jobs subsidise your fucking healthcare.

We help each other out in this country. That’s what makes it a great place to live. If you don’t want to be a part of that, then leave society. But while you’re here, you give a little and you take a little. The people who can afford to give a bit more do and the people who can’t might have to take a little until they can get back on their feet.

And then there are those who might actually not be able to get on their feet because their legs don’t work. They need a bit more help so they can then contribute and help the rest of us enjoy the luxuries we have.

"There was a background security check, his friends told them that he was unfit … they should not have recruited him," Mr Brand said, without naming the agency that took Zygier in.

"What hurts is that the whole thing could have been avoided."

via Israel wont lay charges over Prisoner X death – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

I’ve been thinking about a number of issues recently that all come down to the tiny mistakes that are made as a result of lack of direction through goals and intention.

Goals and intention can help define procedure and procedure helps avoid stupid mistakes: sometimes minor and sometimes with terrible consequences.

Complacency is the enemy and it seems to be winning. That’s sad for the people who are hurt by it.