Authored by: billsimmon on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 02:34 AM

So it's not the QE2, it's the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) and the "we're mad as hell" link goes to a post story about Impron Everywhere agents getting arrested for not wearing pants on the subway. I'm confused.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 02:35 AM

That's "Improv Everywhere." Sorry.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: DanZ on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 07:12 AM

The QE2 is more fun to taunt. Just think of me as the annoying computer nerd down the road [S-PGUON] who posts sometimes indecipherable things from time to time.... only to later be recognized as a genius whos sense of humor was ahead of his time, although the absurdists thing of it as quaint.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: evening on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 08:24 AM

I think I see the connection. The cruise ship folks want to mutiny, but
the improv everywhere folks tried something of the sort and got
arrested. So I think he's answering "Can passengers mutingy?" as a no.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: DanZ on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 10:45 AM

BZZZT! Evening wins the prize.... although I was making a slightly different parallel. My thinking was: when confined to a ship at sea, the hierarchy imposed by the tyranny of the ship's command structure leads to targeted rebellion, as in corporate structure. You know who to blame. The passengers had a contract w/ the liner and felt, in general, that the company was obligated to meet their end of the deal, faulty rotor or not, or compensate the passengers. Their ordered rebellion, so to speak, was taken seriously by all because the 'contract' is formal, as is the structure of authority.

Our social contract, however, has arbitrary tendrils in law that includes things like ordinances against disruptive behavior, both visual and auditory, that vary from precinct to precinct and in general follow no obvious rationale - what may be forbidden on one city may simply be a standard of behavior in another. In a permissive society that allows exposed flesh, provocative clothing, suggestive behavior and self-medication w/ alchohol, caffeine and nicotine, the fact that there are irrationally restrictive prohibitions against much more mild forms of behavior is both disturbing and shameful, but at the same time bears witness to the fact that there is no logical framework that creates the same 'tight ship' control over both behavior and command structue as on ships at sea.

Who polices the intricacies of moral behavior in society at large? What principles or code of morality form the basis of such governance? Obviously the answer is: there is none; or rather "it depends". The blame can be put anywhere, so a more instructive exercise is simply to raise awareness. Street theater in the form I linked to is a beautiful example of this.

I once attempted something similar in a Burger King about 10 years ago when I ordered a Whopper, and upon inspection of the delivered product, asked why it didn't look like the picture on the menu. After a lengthy debate w/ the cashier and the shift manager, I returned the product for a refund on the grounds that they didn't deliver as promised. The cashier didn't care one way or another and refunded my money. I asked what they were going to do with it, and was told "we throw that out". So I said: "as long as you're throwing them out, i'll take it. i don't want to pay for something that isn't what i ordered, however i'll gladly eat something that i didn't originally want, as long as i don't have to pay for it". The cashier agreed and handed me the sandwich (which hadn't moved from the tray alongside the register). The shift manager, however, disagreed and said "i can't give that to you because it's to be thrown out". I pointed out that they were prepared to sell it to me just moments before. He pointed out that they can sell me a sandwich i order, but can't give me that same sandwich if it's been refused - even though it hasn't actually been exposed to pathogens or otherwise transformed, touched or moved. The only thing that had changed was the context of the sandwich ... it's classification, so to speak. This incident would probably not happen on a ship at sea, however if it did, at least somebody would be flogged.

[Admission: I meant QM2 in the original post, not QE2 - that was just a typo.]

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: MarkS on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 12:08 PM

How do you make a Klinhoffer Cocktail?


Two shots and a splash!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: MarkS on Monday, January 23 2006 @ 01:24 PM

That's "Klinghoffer"

[ Reply to This | # ]