That are keeping me awake, Are Reruns of The Mod Squad and Cartoons
Sometimes philosophers of a certain bent worry about puzzles such as the following. Take an object, say, a ship. Now replace one board on the ship with a different board. Same ship, right? Altering one tiny bit of the object never seems to destroy the object and bring a new one into existence. However, keep that up and eventually you will have an object that isn’t a ship in any way and has no parts in common with the object you started with. Intuitively, in other words, from a series of small steps, none of which destroyed the object, a new one has popped into existence.
Whatever you think of this puzzle’s merits, a similar question can be asked about the latest ‘import American culture but do it carefully’ phenomenon: Al Shamsoons. The show centres around the exploits of a buffoonish, overweight, SODA guzzling, Egytpian Sausage (no bacon) eating, kahk munching (ahem) fellow named Omar Al Shamsoon. Omar has a son, Badr, a mischevious li’l scamp who manifestly does not watch any show about a Jewish Clown. The Shamsoon family, furthermore, do not speak to Reverend Lovejoy and Omar never, ever goes to any bar owned by a skeevy felllow named Moe.
Muffti hasn’t seen the show but it seems to be loosely modelled on a famous American cartoon known as the Simpsons. This leaves some questions open. On a metaphysical level, we can ask if it is the same show. On an epistemological level, we can ask how we could possibly know that it was the same show given all the mutilations. On a moral level, we can ask why anyone would be evil enough to rob the original of everything that made it funny. Finally, on an aesthetic level, we can ask whether the show manages to retain any of the charms of the original. Finally, on a practical level, Muffti really, really wants to know: how does the show last more than 4 minutes since most of the original takes place in Moes?!?
Apparently it doesn’t. Muffti will post a script of the show as soon as he can get his hands on one. Unfortunately, it seems that the idea is the funniest thing about the idea. It all reminds Muffti a but of a Simpsons episode where Krusty the clown has to substitute for Itchy and Scratchy:
â€Well now that Itchy & Scratchy are on the Gabbo Show, here’s Eastern Europe’s favourite cat and mouse team Worker and Parasite!â€
Pardon Muffti for a while. He has to go laugh his ass off.
See Jpost.
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10 points for quoting I Mother Earth as a blog post title.
In Tel Aviv, very recently, a Simchas Torah house party, with 700 attendees, resulted in a SHUL being trashed – by whom? Who knows? Peace-and-quiet-loving local atheists, disturbed by the noise? This should be looked into. The piece is in today’s Hamodia newspaper, Friday, Oct. 28. GM will NOT ALLOW this kind of thing, and he will get the poor old guy’s tfillin returned to him, oh, yes he will. Heads will roll.
Get your cape on, GM! GM to the rescue!
interesting question, the ship question. As for your line of questioning, that sounds very socratic. Interesting question about the show though. I think the real issue is that since there is no freedom of the press in the arab world, what kind of political commentary could the show make?
comment link on the “Run your mouth when I’m not around, It’s Easy To Achieve” post is inactive.
Altering one tiny bit of the object never seems to destroy the object and bring a new one into existence. However, keep that up and eventually you will have an object that isn’t a ship in any way and has no parts in common with the object you started with. Intuitively, in other words, from a series of small steps, none of which destroyed the object, a new one has popped into existence.
…Kinda like Reform Judaism?
(Michael made me do it, tho I was feeling mischievous)