Also from the Drexel PG blog, a link to a loaded game site, Sporcle. I’m proud to say I could not name all of the U.S. Presidents, and the ones I couldn’t remember are the ones no one else could either, except Chester Arthur. I knew him, and most people don’t apparently. Others people couldn’t name are Pierce, Buchanan, McKinley, um, Taylor . . . Harding . . . Here’s the test, so you play yourself.
All posts by Phil
New Blog and City Words
The Drexel Publishing Group has a new blog in which students will be contributing. Prof Stein has the details.
Today’s post from Jen Fromal is interesting. She talks about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, and the idea that every city has a word that defines it.
Rome’s word is “sex” and Naples’ word is “fight.” Gilbert’s Swedish friend says that Stockholm’s word is “conform,” and Gilbert concludes that New York City’s word is “achieve” (as opposed to Los Angeles’ word of “succeed.”)
What do you think of this? I wonder if Washington D.C.’s word is “control.”
The Friday Fight: Losing a Shield
You should know that I scanned YouTube for other videos, live steel combat with knights or other non-vikings, but what I found was sorry. I almost posted a video with some bold language in the sidebar from the video’s sponsor, but it wasn’t a fight–it was an instructional talk.
Murder, Easy As Falling Off a Ladder
The ad reads: “Are you sick and tired of cleaning up after your lazy, good-for-nothing family?” Try murder. It can be easy, even for a woman.
The Economy is Up
At least, it is for sales of Any Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and guns.
“‘Americans are flocking to buy and read Atlas Shrugged because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day’ said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.” I haven’t read the book. Is it a tragedy? I keep thinking about buying a gun too, but I haven’t. I hear the supply is down because demand is so far up. No need to fear, Americans. Nancy Pelosi said she wasn’t interested in restricting second amendment rights for the time being.
The Economy Is Down
Humanities departments are among the hardest hit. In this post, Joel Mark comments:
The recession is not what is hitting the humanities departments of most of our major universities. Intellectual poverty and dishonesty are what is hitting them, in the name of such ideologies as postmodernism, neo-Marxism, socialism, political correctness, multi-culturalism and sheer selfish and immature anger (especially in the arts).
I love the humanities and have taught for several years in the humanities department of a university in California. The best place to study and learn about what we call the humanities today, however, is often as far away as possible from a major modern university.
If humanities departments in universities do suffer, that constitutes our best hope for a future rise in our actual learning in the real ‘humanities’ far from the angry ivory towers. So, I am optimistic.
The Sea and the Skylark
On ear and ear two noises too old to end
Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none ’s to spill nor spend.
How these two shame this shallow and frail town!
How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,
Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime:
Our make and making break, are breaking, down
To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.
“The Sea and the Skylark” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Words Used to Mean Things
Over at “Follow the Money” blog, Brad Setser notes a Wall Street Journal story reporting, “Citigroup officials hope to persuade private investors that have bought preferred shares — such as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority . . .”
Setser goes on to point out, “But it is striking that none of the ‘private investors’ mentioned in the Wall Street Journal are actually, well, private investors.”
Speaking of banks, did you hear President Obama say the Feds would strong arm banks to do what they want? Continue reading Words Used to Mean Things
Suburbia in the Twilight
“Something essential, however hard to define, had been lost en route [to suburbia]; some aspect of innocence, perhaps, that at least to a romantic imagination, once existed in our towns,” according to Rod Serling apparently. “Casting a seductive smile, Serling alone continued to convey on TV what every other serious writer wanted to say but wasn’t allowed to”–that message being the dangers of commercialism and fear of current events.
Thanks for Delanceyplace.com for this excerpt.
Twisted Humor
“NASA global warming satellite crashes after launch”
*snicker* Maybe it was on a failed mission.