By Wendy Cope.
I am a poet
I am very fond of bananas.I am bananas
I am very fond of a poet.I am a poet of bananas
I am very fond.A fond poet of ‘I am, I am’-
Very bananas.Fond of ‘Am I bananas,
Am I?’- a very poet.Bananas of a poet!
Am I fond?’ Am I very?Poet bananas! I am.
I am very fond a ‘very’.I am of very fond bananas.
Am I a poet?
The Uncertainty of the Poet Read More »
A great post by Belle Waring on Why I Was So Totally Wrong About Iraq. Her first few reasons for supporting the war:
1. This is the most personally embarrassing reason, but it has to be said: in the aftermath of 9/11 I lost my head a bit and wanted to take some decisive action. I realize that attacking party B after being attacked by party A shouldn’t be satisfying to the vengeful-minded, because it doesn’t make any sense. But, having just been in the odd position of agreeing with the Bush administration on a war (vs. Afghanistan), I somehow found the next war more appealing than I should have. Somewhere in here there must also be a kernel of “let’s smash something to show how powerful we are.” This is really poor reasoning and reflects badly on me personally. Nothing much I can say about it in my defense.
2. I had long thought our current Iraq strategy was very bad. The sanctions were harming innocent Iraqis rather than Saddam, but there was no substantive reason to lift the sanctions from the point of view of Saddam’s compliance. I supported the first Gulf War, unlike all my college friends, and I was dismayed by its denoument. I thought we had failed to finish what we started and had condemned many people to death after encouraging them to rise up against Saddam.
3. Saddam Hussein really was a particularly brutal dictator. Iraqis weren’t suffering as badly as North Koreans, or southern Sudanese people, but it was pretty bad. I thought that any new government would have to be a better government. But we don’t just go around deposing every dictator in the world, do we? Well…
Keep reading. I am fervently anti-war, but it wasn’t an open-and-shut case; Saddam was a bad guy, and people were feeling frustrated and needing to strike back somehow. I have the greatest respect for people like Belle who can fully admit that they were mistaken on this, more so than I have for people who are anti-war because they are anti-any-war-ever.
One aspect I think is not emphasized enough: the extent to which the desire to go to war was created, rather than just acted on, by the Administration. Invading a country is a big decision, not undertaken lightly, and there really wasn’t anything like a close connection between the Islamist fanatics behind September 11 and the secular fascists in Iraq. If a different set of people had been in the White House, the idea of attacking Iraq wouldn’t have ever gotten off the ground, even among the most pugnacious fringes of the punditocracy. Everyone would have been in favor of finishing the job in Afghanistan, followed by the tough decisions about how to handle North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
Via uggabugga, a set of recommendations for what books voters should be reading to prepare themselves for the upcoming election, offered by our leading pundits (in the broadest possible sense of “leading”). To demonstrate that neither end of the political spectrum has any monopoly on self-importance, Ann Coulter and Gore Vidal vie for the title of most self-recommendations.
The best list was offered by the incomparable Jon Stewart, who is funny even when nobody is getting his jokes. Here are his recommendations for what voters should be reading.
“These form the core syllabus of modern voter education.” The amazon.com star rating from readers has been included, to help make decisions about which book you might want to start with. But it’s good to know that Stewart agrees with the consensus over at Michael Bérubé’s blog that an understanding of Pynchon is necessary to follow the current campaign.
Modern voter education Read More »
I just noticed that Preposterous is getting occasional hits from the University of Chicago admissions site. They are letting the prospective students know that I have a blog, as if that’s a good thing!
So I guess I might as well point out that the UofC has been ranked Number One in the Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates by the Princeton Review. Not too shabby for a place known lovingly as “Where Fun Goes to Die.”
There’s a nice article at the Chicago Sun-Times about the scenario Jennie Chen and I are developing to explain the relationship between inflation and the arrow of time. I promise to say more about it once our paper is actually written. Real soon, honest.
No technological development will result Read More »
Okay, this was so my idea. For many years I’ve been pointing out to all who would listen that there are millions of dollars to be made by taking some common food item and tricking it up to be both better and fancier-looking. It’s worked with mustard, with coffee, with ice cream, even with water for crying out loud. The missing example was perfectly obvious: ketchup. You could have gourmet ketchup that was thicker and had interesting texture and consistency, and offer it in a variety of flavors: spicy varieties like jalapeno or curry, sweet flavors like honey or cinnamon. Millions of dollars, I promise.
But apparently someone is already doing it (of course). The Sept. 6th issue of the New Yorker has an article by Malcolm Gladwell (not online, sorry) about Jim Wigon and his gourmet ketchup business. Unfortunately, Wigon doesn’t seem to be doing it correctly. He’s named his company “World’s Best Ketchup,” which is just silly. Just as Grey Poupon got fantastic mileage out of the faux-French presentation, with ketchup you should hint at some exotic Asian background — perhaps Indonesian or something. (It’s possible that ketchup derives from a Chinese fish sauce brought back to Europe by British sailors — but the truth is hardly the point here.) You have to sell the lifestyle, not just the condiment.
I’d be disgustingly rich by now if I weren’t so devoted to selflessly exploring the secrets of the cosmos.
Update: The New Yorker article is now online, as pointed out by Eric in the comments. Gourmet ketchup afficionados might also be interested in gourmet cheesesteaks.
Click to enlarge.
Classical leadership Read More »
At the Scientific Indian. Sure, you know that red meat comes from slow-twitch muscles and white meat from fast-twitch muscles. But do you know why they change color in different ways as they’re cooked?
We have the worst President in at least the last century, perhaps in history. He is quite vulnerable in the upcoming election, purely on the merits. And yet Democrats are obsessed with events of thirty years ago in the candidates’ personal histories — Kerry’s medals, Bush’s craven irresponsibility. Knock it off! The Republicans would like nothing better than to change the subject from the monumental screw-ups of the last four years. Be like the Poor Man, and focus on the shocking revelations from the new Kitty Kelley book.
