"... though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into 5 it would give me much greater pleasure."
Said Lord Byron.
January 3, 2015
"I want to see queer and trans people of color with radical social and political analyses dominate independent media by creating and growing our own platforms, so we can centralize and control our own narratives."
Just one example from the responses WaPo got asking "leading feminists" what they are hoping to accomplish in 2015.
Something so garbled and dispiriting about it all.
Nice caricatures though.
Something so garbled and dispiriting about it all.
Nice caricatures though.
When I snag this particular table...
... I can always concentrate and get some work done. I once wrote an op-ed on a deadline here. Yesterday, it was just some exam grading. If only the deadline were closer, I might have enforced the rule that I can't get up until I'm done. But life is more luxurious than that. The deadline is 2 weeks away.
Most annoying sentence in the NYT article by a guy who used Airbnb to find lodging on his road trip through the American South with his wife and 2 sons.
"Sara and Zach gave us a tour of their beautiful Craftsman home; recommended a fantastic restaurant, the Arcade, at a less touristy part of the famous River Walk; and patiently let us check out late when we went to the Alamo and, ironically, I couldn’t remember where I had parked our car."
Look, I was just trying to get out of that sentence alive. I didn't need to be detained stumbling over what was supposed to be ironic about not remembering where you parked your car.
After musing over the possible significance of "Alamo" as the name of a car rental company, the slogan "Remember the Alamo" occurred to me, and I realized that I was witnessing the remnants of a dad joke that the author might have used on his wife and kids: Where'd I park the car? Remember the Alamo?! I can't even remember where I parked the car.
Look, I was just trying to get out of that sentence alive. I didn't need to be detained stumbling over what was supposed to be ironic about not remembering where you parked your car.
After musing over the possible significance of "Alamo" as the name of a car rental company, the slogan "Remember the Alamo" occurred to me, and I realized that I was witnessing the remnants of a dad joke that the author might have used on his wife and kids: Where'd I park the car? Remember the Alamo?! I can't even remember where I parked the car.
"He’s haunted by what it is that he did when he was not well, and getting well carries with it a real burden."
"You begin to understand the consequences of your acts. At the time, he didn’t really appreciate all of that."
Said John W. Hinckley Jr.'s lawyer, on the occasion of the decision not to try Hinckley for the murder of James Brady. Hinckley shot Brady in 1981, and Brady died last year. Hinckley has been hospitalized since his 1982 trial, at which the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
ADDED: If Hinckley were tried now, he would be the focus of sympathy and many people would be moved to pity him. If you want him locked up for life, the better approach is to leave him in the shadows.
Said John W. Hinckley Jr.'s lawyer, on the occasion of the decision not to try Hinckley for the murder of James Brady. Hinckley shot Brady in 1981, and Brady died last year. Hinckley has been hospitalized since his 1982 trial, at which the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.
ADDED: If Hinckley were tried now, he would be the focus of sympathy and many people would be moved to pity him. If you want him locked up for life, the better approach is to leave him in the shadows.
"When I answered the door, there was a bloody girl. She said mom and dad are dead, we had a plane crash, and the plane is upside down."
"She thought her arm was broken. She was barefooted, she had one sock.... They seemed surprised when I said I had a 7-year-old girl here who said she was in a plane crash... I just pray for her. She's gonna need a lot of help. I just can't imagine someone that young going through that...."
ADDED: The girl — Sailor Gutzler — "walked almost a mile (1.6km) through a dark, dense wood in temperatures of about 40F (4C)" at night to reach the house. The man she found there said: "I don't walk in that wood during the day time... It's a mess."
ADDED: The girl — Sailor Gutzler — "walked almost a mile (1.6km) through a dark, dense wood in temperatures of about 40F (4C)" at night to reach the house. The man she found there said: "I don't walk in that wood during the day time... It's a mess."
Fried.
The previous post "The best of vocal fry" has a comment by Ron: "vocal fry...fried cheese curds...what's next jalapeno poppers?" He's noticing that the post before that is "At the Fried-Cheese-Curds-and-Naked-Ambition Café." Now, I have a tag for "this blog has a theme today," but the "At the Fried-Cheese-Curds-and-Naked-Ambition Café" is yesterday's last post, so the tag doesn't fit. What to do? Well, there are clearly 2 things to do: 1. Whip out the old "I'm not making a tag for this" tag, and 2. Go forward with the theme so that "the blog has a theme today" is apt. So:
1. "Fry-oil biofuel businesses suffer as gas prices fall. Plunging oil prices mean lean times for the owners of greasy spoons no longer able to cash in on their excess fats...."
2. "McDonald's to end fry rationing in Japan.... The company has airlifted more fries into Japan to help ease the shortage and added extra shipments from the U.S. East Coast. During the shortage, McDonald's suggested customers add an extra portion of chicken nuggets to their orders and sold them at a special price of 100 yen."
3. "Kenya: Thieves Fry Kenya's Power Grid to Cook Fast Food... A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five liters of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say. Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sews [sic] the seeds of a public health crisis, experts say."
4. "Stephen Fry Shows Us How To Make (And Spill) a Temporary Lava Lamp.... Three parts vegetable oil, one part water, a little food coloring, some alka-seltzer and an empty tennis ball tube is all it takes...."
5. "An Eggless Egg You Can Fry.... An egg produced from plant proteins might gel, but if the gel doesn’t hold any water once it’s in the pan, the egg will evaporate the instant it touches the pan’s hot oils...."
6. "The Fry Up Police is the hilarious – and sweary – cult Facebook page that’s totally judging your attempts at the British brekkie classic. The idea’s pretty simple. You post a pic of your awesome fry up and then the page’s approx. 5000 members will let you know in no uncertain terms what they make of your efforts. It can get pretty brutal."
7. "Just hours after two New York City police officers were gunned down while sitting in their patrol car Saturday, police protesters took to the streets in St. Louis and were videotaped taunting officers there with a phrase the NYPD cop killer reportedly used on an Instagram post prior to the murders: 'I’m putting pigs in a blanket.' Specifically the small crowd chanted, 'Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon!' as officers stood in a line."
8. "Feminist activists in Belgium threw french fries and mayonnaise on the Belgian Prime Minister Monday in protest of what they believe is his chauvinism and promotion of the wrong economic values."
9. "Wisconsin DUI suspect blames beer-battered fish fry in 10th arrest."
10."fry (v.)... late 13c., from Old French frire 'to fry' (13c.), from Latin frigere 'to roast or fry,' from PIE *bher- (4) 'to cook, bake' (cognates: Sanskrit bhrjjati 'roasts,' bharjanah 'roasting;' Persian birishtan 'to roast;' Greek phrygein 'to roast, bake'). Meaning 'execute in the electric chair' is U.S. slang from 1929. To go out of the frying pan into the fire is first attested in Thomas More (1532)."
1. "Fry-oil biofuel businesses suffer as gas prices fall. Plunging oil prices mean lean times for the owners of greasy spoons no longer able to cash in on their excess fats...."
2. "McDonald's to end fry rationing in Japan.... The company has airlifted more fries into Japan to help ease the shortage and added extra shipments from the U.S. East Coast. During the shortage, McDonald's suggested customers add an extra portion of chicken nuggets to their orders and sold them at a special price of 100 yen."
3. "Kenya: Thieves Fry Kenya's Power Grid to Cook Fast Food... A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five liters of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say. Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sews [sic] the seeds of a public health crisis, experts say."
4. "Stephen Fry Shows Us How To Make (And Spill) a Temporary Lava Lamp.... Three parts vegetable oil, one part water, a little food coloring, some alka-seltzer and an empty tennis ball tube is all it takes...."
5. "An Eggless Egg You Can Fry.... An egg produced from plant proteins might gel, but if the gel doesn’t hold any water once it’s in the pan, the egg will evaporate the instant it touches the pan’s hot oils...."
6. "The Fry Up Police is the hilarious – and sweary – cult Facebook page that’s totally judging your attempts at the British brekkie classic. The idea’s pretty simple. You post a pic of your awesome fry up and then the page’s approx. 5000 members will let you know in no uncertain terms what they make of your efforts. It can get pretty brutal."
7. "Just hours after two New York City police officers were gunned down while sitting in their patrol car Saturday, police protesters took to the streets in St. Louis and were videotaped taunting officers there with a phrase the NYPD cop killer reportedly used on an Instagram post prior to the murders: 'I’m putting pigs in a blanket.' Specifically the small crowd chanted, 'Pigs in a blanket! Fry ‘em like bacon!' as officers stood in a line."
8. "Feminist activists in Belgium threw french fries and mayonnaise on the Belgian Prime Minister Monday in protest of what they believe is his chauvinism and promotion of the wrong economic values."
9. "Wisconsin DUI suspect blames beer-battered fish fry in 10th arrest."
10."fry (v.)... late 13c., from Old French frire 'to fry' (13c.), from Latin frigere 'to roast or fry,' from PIE *bher- (4) 'to cook, bake' (cognates: Sanskrit bhrjjati 'roasts,' bharjanah 'roasting;' Persian birishtan 'to roast;' Greek phrygein 'to roast, bake'). Meaning 'execute in the electric chair' is U.S. slang from 1929. To go out of the frying pan into the fire is first attested in Thomas More (1532)."
The best of vocal fry.
Don't take the poll without watching the video!
ADDED: My original post on this subject came in 2007: "Voice lessons":
Lately, I've noticed a lot of young women speaking in a strangled voice that seems to be produced by a laborious effort to bypass the larynx altogether. They sound as if they are damaging their throats. Are you noticing this trend? Can you tell me how it got started? Is there some celebrity they are imitating? It sounds a little Winona Ryder to me, but there must be some stronger role models affecting young women. Also, is there some way to get them to stop? It is worse than Valley Girl intonation.The first comment was: "This is a very strange observation. Do you have a link so that we can hear this strange vocal pattern?" And I said: "Sorry, I'm just overhearing it in public places. It's driving me crazy. I feel like walking up to strangers and telling them to cut it out." (Then there were some updates, with clips, and some expert opinion informing me that this was called "creaky voice... laryngealisation, pulse phonation or, in singing, vocal fry or glottal fry.")
January 2, 2015
"You see, Elly, I raised you like a boy, and I was wrong to do it."
"I reckon every man like to have a son, and you was my only young'un, and when your ma passed away, I just decided to turn you into a boy. By the time Granny come to help out, you was too wild to tame. By thunder, you could outrun, outclimb, outfight, and outshoot every boy in them hills... It ain't fittin'. It ain't right for folks to go against nature...."
Goodbye to Elly May — Donna Douglas — who has died at the age of 81.
ADDED: Douglas also appeared in one of the greatest episodes of "Twilight Zone," "Eye of the Beholder," which you can watch in full here.
Goodbye to Elly May — Donna Douglas — who has died at the age of 81.
ADDED: Douglas also appeared in one of the greatest episodes of "Twilight Zone," "Eye of the Beholder," which you can watch in full here.
"Arthur and Betty Lampitt of Granite City show off the 1963 Thunderbird turn signal that was embedded in his arm for 51 years after having surgery to remove it on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014."
Photo caption.
Betty was pleased the mystery was solved.
“You know what it’s like with a child,” she said, excitement growing in her voice. “You know it’s in your womb, but it’s not until the miraculous birth occurs that you feel the reality of it.”
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