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Showing posts from January, 2013

Nocking Door-to-Door

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D wight Macdonald, in his influential shoestring little-monthly (later quarterly; 1944-1949)  politics  for April, 1945, in a short item in the " Popular Culture " roundup: Whatever Became of Addison Sims? The kind of question it might be fruitful to answer is: why was self-education so much more popular several generations ago than it seems to be now? Pelmanism, Chatauqua, the Harvard Classics ("Fifteen Minutes a Day"), the International Correspondence Schools, the Roth Memory Course ("Why  of course  I remember you--Mr. Addison Sims of Seattle!"),  Cooper Union--these have become innocent archaisms. At the turn of the century, book agents roamed the country ringing doorbells and selling sets of "standard authors" (Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot) encyclopedias and multi-volume historical works. The book-agent has vanished; people read for amusement, not instruction, and authors are no longer "standard" or sold in sets. Does all this

Lennon and Squiggle, Precedent Bush the Younger, The Sound of Mucus, and Apollo Treed

John Lennon John Lennon Published: 11 January 2013 Sir, - James Campbell says that in The John Lennon Letters, the editor "Hunter Davies writes that John was forbidden to disclose in correspondence with fans that he was married to Cynthia Powell" (December 21 & 28, 2012). Forbidden to dwell on, maybe, but "disclose"? That can't be right, because we fans all knew Lennon's marital status from the start. I remember watching the Ed Sullivan Show the first time the Beatles appeared on it in February 1964. (Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be a teenage girl . . . .) As I recall it, an arrow appeared on the screen pointing to John, with some such wording as "sorry, girls - he's married". JUDITH NELSON 37 Branch Street, #4, Boston, Massachusetts 02114. John Lennon John Lennon Published: 18 January 2013 Sir, - I take my cue from Judith Nelson (Letters, January 11), who amends a point in The John Lennon Letters, edited by Hunter Davies.

Zoomanitarians

Hero Dog Missing Snout Beats Cancer Hero Dog Recovering after Saving Puppy from Coyote Dolphin Caught in Fishing Line Approaches Divers for Help

Coming-Out Parity, &c.

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High school senior comes out as LGBT while accepting award users disliked this comment Scott     So inspired, I have to admit that during all my time as a Yahoo! commenter, I've been pretending to be someone who knows what he is talking about, and as someone who is now, to use the modish term, "questioning" his commentating competence as a result, I can assure you all that that is not the case; I stand before you as one admitting to an ignorance of the issues in these news threads fully the equal of that of every last among you. To all those I have so deceived, and especially to those who have given me the very up-pointing thumbs off their version of the web pages in question, I wish to announce the creation of the PDF (Poseur Defense Fund), in hopes that all those now brave enough to come out in my wake as fellow self-declared barstool-gasbag ignorami, will add themselves to the lists of those not to be taken any more seriously than they do their fellow imbeciles herein.

Prince Randian the Human Caterwauler, and Your Cheatin' Part Will Tail Anew

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In Rand Paul's Imaginary Presidency, He Would Have Fired Clinton Over Benghazi users disliked this comment Scott     In the annals of Grade A priKKKs, the Paul Family has much of which to be proud. 7 Reasons Why Men Cheat users disliked this comment Scott     There are only three reasons (though reason itself may have long since departed) men cheat: one straight and long(er) - and two circular ones clustered just beneath it ...

Adulter ate adulter rations, and Second Inaug URL

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Group Finds More Fake Food Ingredients Scott     What part of the commandment "Thou shall not commit adulteration" do the food producers not get? Scott   Go to YouTube and play the Doug Kahn flexidisc "Reagan Speaks for Himself", and you'll see that Der Gipper was all over the whole issue of adulterated food as far back as 1980, while talking to Bill Moyers. He was especially good on people who serve "poisoned.foods.in.the.can", the hazards of "can.of.poisoned.meat", breaking the backbone of America over the car door, and how the invention of an economical stein handle that snap-clamps to keep your cold drinks warm can make a fella a million dollars. Scott   And for those unable to pay that extra dime for authentic Dr. Pepper, our local grocers -  I'm not making these up  - offer "Dr. Perky"; their Mountain Dew knockoff is "Mountain Lion", and for coin-tossed fans of Seven-Up or Sprite, they split the difference with &

Tough-Actin' Tin Actons

62-Year-Old With Gun Only One Standing Between Nation And Full-Scale Government Takeover Dumb America by Garry Wills

We The People Nietzsche Now More Than Ever

" Lippmann vs. Mencken: Debating Democracy " by David Greenberg, in Raritan , Fall 2012, via EBSCO: The article discusses a debate between journalists Walter Lippmann and Henry Louis Mencken regarding Lippmann's 1922 book "Public Opinion," highlighting a review of the book by Mencken in the periodical "Smart Set" and a reply by Lippmann in the periodical "New Republic." It is said that the debate involved the viability of democracy, about which Mencken was more pessimistic. The author claims that philosopher John Dewey was not as important to the dispute as has been believed, while Lippmann and Mencken differed in their reactions to the 1925 Scopes trial. Lippmann's reply to Mencken's book "Notes on Democracy" is addressed.

This Sunny Comes Out To SRO

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With Lilla Crawford as Annie (2012), The Palace Theatre , New York N ew York Theater : "Sandy the stray male dog whom Annie adopts is played by a female terrier who, according to her bio in Playbill, was rescued from a dog pound 24 hours before being euthanized, and whose name is Sunny. Now, a cynic might suspect this story. But who living in New York City these days wouldn’t prefer a Sandy who turned out to be Sunny?"

Elastica (Band)

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"Censor" Nonsense

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      The burning of Jan Hus at the stake at the Council of Constance by Carl Gustav Hellqvist (1851-1890) B K Marcus on censorship schmensorship : ...  When I was in high school, my girlfriend was one of the editors of the school’s literary magazine. She and the other editors rejected a submission that was explicitly sexual and full of "dirty" words. The school newspaper sent a reporter to talk to her about censorship in the literary magazine. She tried to explain that lower- and middle-school students read the magazine, that it was an official representation of the school, that they didn’t take a black marker and cross out the offensive parts. They just didn’t feel the piece was appropriate for their magazine. When she told me about the interview, I said, "You might have also mentioned that it’s not censorship. It’s called an editorial decision. The magazine never promised to accept all submissions." She replied, "Darn! Why didn’t I say that?" Well, she

Leap Years

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Comedians Peter Cook (L) and Dudley Moore rehearsing their "Leaping Nuns" sketch for Cook's Revue "Rustle of Spring" at the Phoenix Theatre in London. D avid Horspool reviews The History of England: Volume One: Foundation  by Peter Ackroyd: Ackroyd intersperses his narrative with shorter thematic chapters, which take up subjects from children’s toys to climate, from the growth of towns to the diet of commoners and kings. Here his unerring sense of the extraordinary or the emblematic is allowed full rein. In a chapter on customs, he simply notes how arbitrary many were, “of inexplicable mystery . . . . If a whale was stranded on the coast near Chichester, it belonged to the bishop except the tongue, which was taken to the king; if a whale landed anywhere else along the shore of his diocese, the bishop was permitted only the right flipper”. Elsewhere he informs us that kings liked their whale tongues “either boiled with peas or roasted”. Discussing the foundation

On a 'Clear' Day You Can CPSU for a Billion Years

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           Illustration by Julien Pacaud, colagene.com; photograph by Chris Ware/Keystone Features — Getty Images ‘Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief’ By LAWRENCE WRIGHT Reviewed by MICHAEL KINSLEY Wright’s book ... makes clear that Scientology is like no church on Earth (or, in all probability, Venus or Mars either). The closest institutional parallel would be the Communist Party in its heyday: the ruthless struggles for power, the show trials and forced confessions (often false); the paranoia (often justified); the determination to control its members’ lives completely (the key difference, you will recall, between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, according to the onetime American ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick); the maintenance of something close to prison camps where dissenters, would-be defectors and power-struggle rivals were incarcerated in deplorable conditions for years and punished if they tried to escape; what the book des

Tiers for Piers, Crustacean Station, and Fox & Fawns

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Piers Morgan Tell Us How He Really Feels About Andrew Sullivan Scott Lahti   "his recent interview with gun control nutjub Alex Morgan" 1. Gun-control  opponent ; usage falsely implies a supporter 2. "Nutjub" 3. Jones, not Morgan Other than that,  Cody, how's your ma ? Scott Lahti Piers Plows Man's Man : A Middling English (or mid- Atlantic ) AlGorical narrative poem from (what only seems like) the 14th century. Crabs Really Do Feel Pain: Study ...  new research further supports the hypothesis that crabs feel pain by showing that crabs given a mild shock will take steps to avoid getting shocked in the future. Scott   "crabs given a mild shock will take steps to avoid getting shocked" ♫ An' I wanna move the town to the Crab City Rockers/You need a little jump of electrical shockers ♫   Michael J. Fox Tells Taylor Swift to ‘Back Off’ His Son Scott     What's wrong with your son dating a deer fetus? Scott     What's wrong with your son dat

Don't G(al)o(re) There

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Ian Fleming biopic to include Bond girls’ real-life inspiration Deepwater     And still yahoo won't let me write #$%$ Galore.... WADE     haha Fizzy     Try Wholatta #$%$.. Scott     #$%$ E. Galore. Pusee Galore. P*ssy Galore. Bangalore. Fizzy     dammit... "Wholatta c(un)t"? Scott     Fizzy ftw Boo Hoo     According to Sean Connery it's Pushy Galore. Cf. Phil Hartman as  Charlton Heston recording  Sex  by Madonna , with Danny DeVito as Al "Screw" Goldstein: Charlton Heston : Uh.. I'm having a problem with the word at the top of the page. Sound Operator : Which one? Charlton Heston : The "P" word. Couldn't I just say  "vagina" ? Al Goldstein : Heston, you sound like an old whore. Read it the way Madonna wrote it! Show some respect! Charlton Heston : I'm sorry.. I'm just uncomfortable with it. I understand what you're saying. You want something young and hip - I could say something like..  furburger ? And the hits just