I have mine. After all, this is Towel Day all over the galaxy. Not to mention the known universe. Not sure about the 11 extra dimensions. Or whether our reptilian overlords (see Infowars) are going to allow it or quash it. We shall see.
Via Simon Thomas Gentle (a disguise rare readers hereabouts will recognize.)
Posted in Blogosphere, Facebook, Library, Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, Towel Day
As this new book demonstrates, including notice of “the arsenal” the great author of non-violence Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. kept for self-defense.
“In This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb, Jr. reveals how nonviolent activists and their allies kept the civil rights movement alive by bearing—and, when necessary, using—firearms. Whether patrolling their neighborhoods, garrisoning their homes, or firing back at attackers, these men and women were crucial to the movement’s success, as were the weapons they carried.”
It’s ironic the first black (well, half-black) president is such a demon for disarming Americans. But the world’s greatest gun salesman didn’t grow up in the mainland U.S., nor experience Southern segregation and the KKK is only a story to him. Would reading this book change his mind? Has anything else in almost eight years? He is a man of conviction. Not to mention stupidity.
Via Instapundit.
Alas, we can but mourn the passing of one Robert Hartwell Fiske, he of the Vocabula Review and an unparalleled concern for our declining language.
“I’m not sure when, precisely, Robert Fiske signed on to fight the pollution of empty jargon, idiotic euphemism, self-serving imprecision, comic redundancy and nonsense generally. He had earlier worked as a copy editor for the Addison-Wesley publishing company and then as a freelance editor. A passion for correct English at some point must have turned into an obsession. Robert was apparently obsessive in other realms: He was a weightlifter and a man who went on 10-mile treks carrying 50 pounds of bricks in a backpack.”
His Vocabula Review was far more reasonable. Have a look.
Via WSJ
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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Obsessions, Scribbles, The Culture
Tagged punching holes in your bucket list, Robert Hatwell Fiske, The Vocabula Review
Bought a copy of this flicker’s “final cut” on DVD to share with Mr. Boy at our new movie-of-the-week-at-home suggested by our counselor. Mr. B.’s never seen it. I remember liking it when I saw the classic scifi tale back in the day in one of the houses of sticky floors.
Been listening to the original soundtrack by Vangelis for several weeks now. Can’t remember how I got hooked back up to the music aspect. Hope the visual and story are as good as I remember. At least the flying cars were cool.
Aviya Kushner’s gentle, engaging prose in The Grammar of God pulls you along on what might at first seem to be a nitpicking journey into the words of the Bible, in its original Hebrew and its subsequent translations into various languages, principally English in the best-known King James Version of 1611.
Then it turns compelling. You discover such “mistranslations,” or perhaps intentional choices, as in the Commandment (in the English KJV) not to kill. Which has occasioned more than 400 years of conscientious objection to war.
In the original Hebrew the word is murder. “In biblical Herbew,” Kushner writes, “there is a gaping difference between the verb ‘to kill’—laharog—and the verb ‘to murder’—lirtzoach….This word choice matters because there are acceptable forms of killing in the Bible (such as self-defense).”
Moreover, “the phrase ‘the Ten Commandments’ appears nowhere in the Hebrew,” she concludes. It’s “the ten sayings.” Which makes it even more obvious that the KJV translators in particular and probably other translators of the Hebrew into Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, Chinese, etc., have brought their own interpretations to the text which millions rely on for spiritual guidance. Some of them on the exact wording.
Nevertheless, Kushner is at pains to forgive such issues: “Translators throughout time have faced impossible choices. They could not bring everything over in the great journey from Hebrew to another language—and maybe they didn’t want to.”
For such surprising discoveries alone the book is worth your time and money.
Posted in Israel, Library, The Culture
Tagged Aviya Kushner, The Grammar of God, translating the Hebrew bible
And sympathetic Watergate burglars in Thomas Mallon’s Watergate: A novel. As well as a pox on the houses of the mendacious journalists and Democrat pols who ran the coup that caused Nixon to resign and the first-offense burglars to suffer disproportionate prison sentences—imposed by a judge encouraged to overstep by his picture running on the cover of Time magazine.
All of whose 1970s-80s canonization has lately been questioned by historians. And of course it’s as well written as Mallon’s other novels, such as Henry and Clara, historical fiction about the aftermath of Lincoln’s asassination. With rich characterizations of even minor figures. You do have to remember the Watergate details because Mallon doesn’t go into many of them. But with Google and Wikipedia for refreshers you’re home free. Worth your time and money.
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Posted in History, Library, The Culture
Tagged a sympathetic Nixon, Thomas Mallon, Watergate: A Novel
Was this dirtiest poem ever (its sentiments expertly depicted above) written a short while ago, you may ask? Only if you consider 1755 to be recent.
Indeed, the poem by Thomas Potter, the “debauched son of the Archbishop of Canterbury” was first published by John Wilkes, the father of press freedom and civil liberties. To the extent we still have any after the Obama administration, NSA, FBI, CIA, Google, Facebook, Russian and Chinese hackers, etc. finish with us.
The poem, which certainly is tame by 21st century standards, nevertheless will show you that, among other things, the F-word isn’t of recent vintage either. Although ours may be the first culture in the history of the language to have rendered it commonplace in public discourse.
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Posted in Blogosphere, History, Library, Obamalot, Scribbles, The Culture
Tagged John Wilkes, the dirtiest poem in theEnglish language, Thomas Potter
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 