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Lyndon Hood - Aphorist, Lower Hutt

Friday, January 19, 2007

While it's in my head, something occurred to me a while back. And I think you can guess what I'm talking about.

It's not just that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

There is an additional terror.

Those who are not interested in the lessons of history are not afraid of being judged by it.

Lyndon Hood - presentee, Lower Hutt

Thursday, January 18, 2007

So one rather merry Christmas present was the Axis of Evil Fingerpuppets, starring Dubya, Kim Jong Il, the Ayatollah K (sadly no President A) and - most relevant for my immediate purposes - Saddam Hussein (other sets and the updated Axis here). The images that follow were made at the time but I think by the time they arrived at Scoop global headquarters they already had actual pictures.

Another present I'll boast about was The Daily Show's controversial America (The Book), a publicaton which I first came across on the shelves of the Lower Hutt Public Library.

I just thought you might like to know that, by my count, it mentions New Zealand not less than twice.

A short piece entitled "If I Were President By Ed Helms", containing such lines as:
I believe every American should have health insurance, so I would write a law giving it to them - and then I'd sign it right away. I also don't think people should have to struggle to make ends meet, so I would fix the economy.
has the following tagline:
Ed Helms was the Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1994 to 1996.
I mean, I can understand a mistake with the electoral cycles but getting the wrong person is something else. No wonder it was controversial

We also have almost two-thirds of a page in the "The Rest of the World" section. I could actually type out all 80-odd words (excluding placenames on the map) of "New Zealand: Australia's Canada (Australia has three pages), but that's not the way we do things round here. Suffice to say it mentions Lord of the Rings and sheep. And Maoris [sic - how mortifying for them]. The important thing is that we are now famous.

We share our page with the South Pacific Islands.

So anyway, right now, I won't discourse an adaptation of one social models of crime (discussed in Phillip Ball's fascinating and discursive book on physics-based social modelling Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another which he seems to summarise in this paper [PDF]) might suggest it would take a disproportionate amount of force to bring order to Iraq. No surprises there, I guess. Mind you, even this "surge" of troops won't really add up to more than there have been before. Time to stop digging, I say.

And, for the time being, I won't be publishing any of the pictures of various alarmed-looking birds that I poked my camera at in the South Island. So here's some figerpuppet snuff:

Before
unhung saddam fingerpuppet
Click for bigger version


During
hanging saddam fingerpuppet, with dubya helping
Click for bigger version


After
hanged saddam fingerpuppet
Click for bigger version


All going to plan, you may see more of these guys.

Lyndon Hood - Autoiconoclast, Wellington

Friday, January 12, 2007

New Hood: Hood: Satirist's Holiday Ruined by Unpunished Folly

Returning to the office today, Scoop's Resident Satirist today reported that his summer holiday had been "absolutely ruined" by the thought of mankind continuing to engage in the vices of folly, blindness and arrogance without him criticising this behaviour in literature.

"There I was sitting on the beach, trying to get to grips with Pope's Dunciad, and all the time I was thinking, what if someone falls prey to the forces of irrationality and I'm not there to chide them?" said the Satirist, who cites his skill in deriding foolishness as one reason he has been Time's person of the year for two years running...

See... http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00139.htm