This comment is originally from Daniel Ellsberg...sorry to answer my own post.

This is the headtitle of some European editorials.
For the younger people: Stasi (Staatssicherheit) archived "information" on *everybody* in former DDR.
1 on 50 in former DDR was linked to Stasi as one of 90000 employees or 200000 informants.

explanation one:
In Dutch "stinkend rijk" (translation: stinking (filthy) rich) is a saying that goes back to the tradition of burying those people in church who attributed financially to the church.
Incense was used to cover the smell originating from the grave.
A good example is the Bruges cemetery installed under the Prusian invasion (+/- 1787) in Flanders and Netherlands.
The Prusian law ordered all corpses to be buried in the cemetery.
explanation two:
Tradition wants it that empereror Vespasianus replied "pecunia non olet" (translation: money does not stink) upon the indignation of his son Titus on his father levying taxes on public toilets.

My wife understands that her attitude, even at her workplace, can easily be understood as "autism".
She does not search for medical attention since she is scared of the labeling scheme of psychiatry with their ever changing DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders).
Her strong reservation for "lesser analytically skilled" was actually a point of attraction to me.
Her mom told that my wife was 7 years old when they first saw her in complete rage shouting "the teacher keeps repeating again and again how the multiplicative tables work and they (her class mates) still don't understand".
Her "uninterested, non-assertive" attitude was her way to get through her studies without actually hurting anyone.
I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that she never ever was nervous before her university examinations. But she just shrugs and repeats that if you are well prepared you should not be nervous.
And for someone who is not interested in making social contacts she is doing great before big audiences.
In fact the rapidly evolving "information technology society" should help to understand that we all have limits to what we wish to care for. This is what I would call the little autistic side in everyone of us.

I recently acquired a lithography of M.C. Escher that has that same white wall - with stones taken out and "funny figure" in front.
Much to the dismay of Escher, he was very popular in the "psychedelic" hippie community in the mid sixties up until his death 1972.
Gerald Scarfe added the "asshole" judge to "the wall" cover art - not very surprising if you have noted the obsession of Anglosaxons with buggery.
I make the case that you can not take "artistic occurrences" out of a bigger context.
The masters from impressionism, expressionism, futurism, suprematism, abstract, cubism... were subscribing to making art just for the heck of making art, not longer making art for a superpower-that-be.
This is also true for the music composers at that time and the Linux project now.
Yes, engineers are the truest artists in my viewpoint, trying to give plastic and functional shape to (irrational) aspirations of a society - the essence of art.
The essence of the artist is to communicate - like holding a mirror to his community on their and his aspirations.
Nowadays artists want to make a living...okay, but don't be surprised as an arty farty snobbistic collectioneur you will not find me sympathetic to DRM and your copyright lifetime ad absurdum.
In fact, don't be surprised that I don' t care about your "art" in the first place.

"La dette publique, on ne sait pas comment elle est arrivée, mais elle disparaîtra d'elle-même."
translation: Public debt, we don't know how it arrived, but it will disappear of itself.
He was called Guy Mathot. This genius died in 2005.
He was a member of the same political party than the late Michel Daerden who had a youtube hit with his drunk speech.
On a more serious note I think "5000 years of debt" from David Graeber is an interesting read. It just doesn't take away the general feeling that we got ripped by our government.

I first read Omer (from Arabic Umar) but since he was a she,it will be more of a "hey babe, take a walk on the wild side".
OK, I should update on my font settings...

Quote: "At the hospital the doctor and a psychologist took my mom apart to go over the facts of the incident."
whoops, the literal translation from Flemish "took apart" means "to demolish" in English.
I meant to say "taking aside".

My father recently passed out and fell frontally flat on the floor.
At the hospital the doctor and a psychologist took my mom apart to go over the facts of the incident.
The family physician explained that domestic violence against men is frequent and severe (weapons) corresponding to the deep wound and the bruises in the face of my dad.
Since domestic violence against men is almost never reported cross examination at emergency is routine.

Quote: “All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog. If one could but realize this knowledge, if one could but bring it into the light of day, if we dogs would but own that we know infinitely more than we admit to ourselves!”
A frequently used technique by Kafka is self-analysis from another perspective eg Gregor Samsa as a beetle, ape in "report to an academy" or indeed a dog.
Kafka frequently alludes to the possibility that the search for truth is only meaningful in as much as it studies the totality of things.
This is evoked by "a lot of voices" (upon K. entering the courtroom or K.'s description of the phone call from the castle).
In "investigations of a dog" it is evoked by the "music" of 7 dogs.
Baudelaire at least had the good instinct of calling out "Oh Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère" like the howling of a dog.

During an interview about the Flu shot a professor went completely in defensive mode when asked about reported low efficiency of the Flu shot given to elderly: "This is typical Belgian. It's oh so cosy to visit grandma and grandpa with the snotty grandchildren that are cuddled all the time. In other countries children are not even allowed in an old people's home."
Maybe we try to find a shortcut to inheritance professor?

Biotech could mean:
1) lethal dose (per kg or ounce of enemy) of bioactive molecule
2) lethal contagious organism
The latter would mean you create a memory (DNA or RNA) as a template for its contagious state.
By nature of the replication mechanism of the memory mutations will occur. Every year we have proof of how effective these mutations are - and how effective the marketing of big pharmaceutical companies are by flooding us with vaccination programs.
It's like digging a hole and the hole getting bigger and bigger (pandemic) until you are bound to fall in it one day or the other.

fap fap fap
A Danish Clown or a Norwegian Clown?
fap fap...
In marketing they call this a niche product - pron talk "fetish" (originally from voodoo?).
Anyway, agreed, it is getting ridiculous.

Our prime minister is bisexual.
French "A voile et à vapeur"
Translation: His fancy can be tickled by sail and steam.

Did you know that "mannequin" is an old Flemish word for a taylor's dummy that had the figurative meaning "someone without character" or "someone on a leash"?
"mannequin" came originally from "manneken" - with manneken meaning "boy".
A well known manneken was "manneken pis", a boy that accidentally extinguished the burning fuse of bombs laid at the city walls of Brussels by having a leak on the fuse.