Agora 27 May 2008 7:48 pm
Seen on the rump of a car last week:
O’BAMA 2008
♣ Vote Irish ♣
And today: Jeff Greenfield on the American preference for presidents with unchallenging (i.e., bland, preferably mono- or bisyllabic Anglo-Saxon) last names. Could a George W. Dukakis ever have been elected? George W. Kucinich (or Voinovich)? George W. Deukmejian? A “nation of [...]
Agora 23 Mar 2008 11:39 am
The other day my friend Thomas (aka The Newsrack Blogger) got into a fistfight at a local bookstore over the question of impeachment.
Okay, it wasn’t a fistfight—he had shouting match with Eric Alterman, author of Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, during the Q&A at a book signing.
Okay, okay, the exchange wasn’t [...]
Random and Russia 3 Mar 2008 7:56 pm
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum …
I always imagined fifteen guys stomping up and down on some poor guy’s chest. Maybe I’m the only one—I never really checked with anyone else. Well, today I came across this translation at a Russian blog: пятнадцать человек на сундук мертвеца, which back-translates [...]
Random 13 Feb 2008 11:53 pm
Okay, I’ve got a thing about verbal economy, but maybe this is too damn parsimonious.
A while back the online magazine Smith presented a six-word “story” by Ernest Hemingway:
For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
A remarkably concise tale indeed—pathos concretized pithily. Smith invited its readers to go mano-a-mano with Papa, and six-word memoirs from its readers came [...]
Random 31 Dec 2007 6:19 pm
I learned something new today. (Did I learn something new yesterday? Hmm …) It’s New Year’s Eve, and I bought a beer I’d never tried—Bell’s Sparkling Ale. I’d tried several Bell’s brews and found them all excellent. Well, here’s how they tempt you on the back label of the tipple at hand: “Fill your glass [...]
Random 19 Sep 2007 11:44 am
How could I not take note of the fact that the smiley turned 25 today?
[Carnegie Mellon professor Scott E.] Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to [...]
Agora 4 Sep 2007 8:10 pm
The association where I work has just published a book for those who wish to be “mentors” in science education. That’s all well and good. The problem is that the persons at the receiving end of this guidance are called “mentees.” This is so grating to my eyes and ears that I came here to [...]
Random 15 Aug 2007 1:06 pm
Happy Feast of the Assumption! We all make ’em, so let’s celebrate ’em (even if they sometimes make an ass of you and me).
Random 19 Jan 2007 12:26 pm
I’m going to go ahead and swipe this right out of Harper’s. First of all, it’s the lazy thing to do. Second, they swiped it from the Chicago Manual of Style Online—specifically the section that’s a sort of “Dear Abby” for copyeditors. I happen to have been one, and like they say,* once a copyeditor, [...]
Random 10 Jan 2007 12:23 pm
On December 31, I thought about resolving to be even lazier in 2007 than I was in 2006, but I never got around to it.
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