Sunday, November 9, 2008
Tonight’s A Prairie Home Companion impressed me as a pure and joyful celebration of the election of Barack Obama–perhaps the best expression of that joy that I have heard thus far. In the opening minutes, Jearlyn Steele and Garrison Keilor teamed up for a rousing rendition of “America the Beautiful,” and as they sang, I [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Having plumbed a new low in North Carolina politics–and, let’s face it, a low in NC, the home of Jesse Helms, is by default, a national low–Elizabeth Dole has managed to lose her senate seat, perhaps primarily by accusing her opponent, Kay Hagan, of being (gasp) an atheist. Well, in point of fact, she lost by [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The recent anti-élite campaign jargon of the McCain-Palin camp has made use of a most annoying–but ubiquitous–malapropism. Palin, especially, refers rather often, and rather annoyingly, to the “good ol’ boy network.” If anything could solidify one’s status as outside of the élite, this off-target utterance would be that thing. See, there is a world, or [...]
Continue reading...Sunday, May 4, 2008
I don’t know what got into me, exactly, but on a whim, I entered “I can haz” into a Google search. I guess I was becoming aware how often the phrase appears as I surf around. I wondered how pervasive it had become, how much cultural penetration it had achieved. Google came up [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 14, 2008
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With the Dalai Lama so much in the news lately, I am struck by how many commentators mangle the pronunciation of his title. I mean, he’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner (1989), for crying out loud. Can we get this right? It seems that many of them pronounce it “DOLL-lee LAH-muh.” The more [...]
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
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