Lavender and Bacon

…Have an interesting aesthetic quality. No matter which of them you like the smell of, you’re going to think they smell horrible together.

Hey, read this cool little biography of Philip K. Dick. You can’t know too much about one of the greatest, and weirdest, writers of the 20th century. I’d also like to peripherally thank the author of the horrible short-story that hadn’t even been edited but was submitted as application to a writing group I participate in (as if I had time), which started the conversation about whether unedited work could ever be good (though this one was unanimously declared not to be), which led to me finding the nifty biographical article that I very much enjoyed. PKD did manage to publish barely-edited work for a while, by the way, but it’s not considered to be very good.

Also, I found an online comedy streaming radio station. I don’t actually know if it’s funny yet, but I can dream now and report back later.

This one’s interesting — some airline passengers are so fed up over the heinous long waits, mismanaged operations, and incompetant customer service that they’ve formed a coalition to lobby congress to force the companies to change. Now, everyone knows that airlines are in terrible financial shape. The employees are suffering horribly, the corporations are hemorrhaging money, service to passengers gets worse and less efficient all the time…but what good will Congress telling them to shape up do? They don’t have the resources to shape up. Things have gone downhill ever since deregulation, right? …But with everything else going on, you have to wonder if the government has the money to re-regulate them, too. Hmm. Sticky. Economics 401 didn’t prepare me for this, heh.

Lastly, The Leiter Reports is becoming one of my favorite philosophy-related sites. It’s a blog, with very knowledgeable writers and a good mix of different stuff — poetry and relevant news and educationalia and insightful stuff and hard analytica. I like their political stuff too. Very cool content and an unobtrusive, if not terribly pretty, design. Very recommended.

There, now I can close some freaking tabs. ;)

-PD

EDIT:  Add this really great find:  PKDick on the topic of the I Ching, and why it should be used in earnestness proportional to your level of schizophrenia.  <3!