It's hard to take the Roman officer seriously when he sounds like Paul Frees. I keep thinking he's going to transition into the "Haunted Mansion" narrative or Boris Badenov.

"Yes, Caesar. We will capture Moose and slave!"

I caught the sweet spot in the late 70s/early 80s of Columbia House 8 tracks. I remember getting a couple of Steve Martin stand-up albums.

I don't get the attitude that because 1) it's a bank (so screw them), and 2) it's a legal contract, that a mortgage is not also a moral obligation.

Try putting yourself in the bank's place. Your co-worker borrows $10,000 from you to buy some stock. He signs a loan agreement. The stock crashes and is now worth half that much. He can make the repayments to you but doesn't feel like it because the stock isn't going to regain its value anytime soon and he'd rather free up his money to do something else. So he defaults on the loan you made and hands you the stock certificates worth half what you loaned him. Still think that's an okay way to do business?

Or flip the scenario the other way. You borrow money from the bank to buy a home. The home value skyrockets. The bank calls you up and says, "We changed our mind. We'd rather have the home than the mortgage payment, so we're recalling your loan. We're giving you back your principle payments and foreclosing. Get out." Would that be okay?

Duchamp proved what is attributed to Barnum - "There's a sucker born every minute" - and Mencken - "Nobody went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Duchamp and his fellow travelers wanted to destroy the idea of art by making "art" that was literally meaningless and nonsensical. He sawed off the branch he was standing on.

It's a nonsensical, self-defeating argument. And this "art" is just another iteration of the same pointless exercise in "artistic" narcissism.

And I'll bet you the artist expected to be paid in real money -- not in Monopoly money, or a check with "THIS IS NOT A CHECK" scrawled on it. And I'll further wager the museum isn't going to let the visitor argue that walking across the peanut butter was performance art.

It's art because a pretentious hack managed to fool a gullible museum director and cow a sheep-like public? Even if Rembrandt filled a tub with peanut butter, that wouldn't make it art.

When people can't tell the difference between art and garbage (because there literally is none), we've gone way too far down the post-modernist, deconstruction rabbit hole. Simply asserting "It's art!" doesn't make it so.

Rumson, garbage IS art:

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/arts/news/article_1191.php/Artwork_Containing_A_Bag_Of_Trash_Was_Thrown_Out

Yes, to all the above.

Modern art is a largely a scam perpetrated on willing dupes. These artists play the role of the tailors in "The Emperor's New Clothes." When anyone dares to point out the emperor is naked, they're shouted down as philistines who don't "get" art.

It's a training device for that game where they make you put your forehead on a bat, spin around, and then try to run a straight line. The spike keeps it in place.

Unicorn poop, XL

It's a bat used by the Baseball Furies in "The Warriors" -- a very collectible piece of movie memorabilia!

Unicorn poop, XL

The headline is rather misleading. Even the article makes it clear that the Finnish "secret" isn't just better teachers. There are all kinds of unique things driving their success - including cultural dynamics which can't be reproduced here, or possibly anywhere.

So teachers in Finland make about the same as teachers in the US and have Masters degrees, like many in the US.

Do they have to deal with NCLB, teaching to the test, and all the related bureaucratic folderol?

Are they protected by insular unions which fight tooth and nail to keep bad teachers employed?

And do they have classrooms full of kids with an inflated sense of self-importance and parents who think their special snowflakes are geniuses who can do no wrong, and/or kids who don't care at all because their families are dysfunctional and uninvolved in their kids' education and basically expect the school to do the job of parenting?

I don't think Angel Heart (1987) is strictly an AIYH movie, but it does have DeNiro, Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, and lots of violence.

I can't believe this is a serious discussion, but here goes:

There's no indication that Wayne was a selfish plutocrat. He's portrayed as a benevolent employer who was committed to public service. His death paralleled rising unemployment, crime, corruption, and social disruption in Gotham. Bruce Wayne is seeking not to re-establish a feudal serfdom but a measure of social stability and civic health. He's not fighting to keep the working man down; he's fighting corrupt officials, crime lords, and sociopaths who seek to bring anarchy and social decay. That's not Wayne's "spin" on things, those are the admitted goals of Batman's foes.

The idea that Batman is a selfish plutocrat defending his own narrow interests is the argument of a juvenile mind which conflates freedom with anarchy. Batman is fighting against Gotham's descent into a Nietzschean hell where the only "law" is will to power.

Ask yourself: Would the average Gothamite rather live in a world defined by Batman or by the Joker?

It seems clear that McDonalds was to blame for serving coffee at a temperature they knew had burned people before.

It also seems clear that the plaintiff was to blame for holding scalding hot coffee between her knees, in a car.

And it also seems clear the jury is to blame most of all for assigning 80% blame to McDonalds and a ridiculous judgment out of any proportion to the injury sustained.

Apparently it will be named Zion and have some amazing techno rave parties.