Political tropes of the day

The campaign aides cited in this New York Times article do just fine. But watch the reporter overreach:

One aide wearily compared the campaign to a cross-country race whose finish line keeps creeping farther away. Another likened its current state to a game of chicken, where neither campaign can afford to slow down, lest the other side interpret it as a sign of weakness. But even enemies as bitter as the Germans and the French climbed out of the trenches during the Christmas truce of 1914 to sing carols together. (They went back to killing each other shortly afterward.)

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A few words from Buck Mulligan

"Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects that every man this day will do his duty."

Buck Mulligan, in James Joyce's Ulysses (1922)

I've taken these words out of context: Buck Mulligan is speaking of June 16, 1904, and he's parodying Horatio Lord Nelson.

But all that aside: Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

(The name Leddy is Irish.)

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Dying metaphors of the day

From the main page of the New York Times online:

The Spitzer scandal, hot on the low heels of the Hillary heckling, is raising hackles.

If you're wondering, hackles are "erectile hairs along the neck and back especially of a dog."

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Inept political metaphor of the day

DOTHETEST

A quick test of awareness: DOTHETEST.

Greek diners on the wane

Dark prophecy:

“When Greeks get out of diners, there will no more be diners.”

Diners in Changing Hands; Greek Ownership on the Wane (New York Times)

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Signage problem

Noticed on a state road, in front of a high school, nailed to telephone poles, two sets of signs celebrating, one word at a time, a team's journey to "state." It seems that the signmakers were working without a shared sense of message.

Five yellow signs:

WE    ARE    PROUD    OF    YOU.

And then five white ones:

HONK    IF    YOU    DO    TOO.

Yes, I honked.

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Necker cube

Drawn in the margins of eleventyteen loose-leaf pages. Did you know that it has a name?

[Eleventyteen: "many," my father-in-law's coinage.]

Necker cube (Wikipedia)
Animated Necker cube (Mark Newbold)

Wriggley's and Wrigley's gum

I don't know how long I've had this practical joke or where it came from. It's been sitting for some time in a box with other dowdy objects — a package of Blanco y Negro cigarette papers, a box of Dennison "Merchandise — 4th Class Mail" gummed labels, a Traveler's Expense Book (with an illustration of a hatted businessman, an airplane at his shoulder, an automobile emerging from behind his upper arm).

What I do know is that the chances for Wriggley deception will soon vanish, as Wrigley has moved to repackage its Spearmint gum and other "traditional" brands. The Chicago Tribune reports:

With the repackaging, Extra and the traditional brands [including Doublemint, Juicy Fruit, and Spearmint] will come in a flat, square pack rather than a bulkier rectangle. The "Slim Packs" are essentially the same as those for Wrigley's "5" brand, a sugarless gum introduced last year that's been a hit, particularly with younger consumers.

The new pack is aimed at being a better fit in a consumer's pocket or purse. It's also a way for Wrigley to showcase old brands in a trendier format.

The changes are a response to the success of what the Trib calls "a key gummaking rival," Cadbury, the maker of Dentyne and Trident.

[Update: I have a vague memory of my son getting this novelty from a friend in elementary school. Ben, may I offer you a piece of gum?]

Wrigley's Spearmint design, 1913-2004 (Wrigley)

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Inept political metaphor of the day

From an article on Eliot Spitzer's resignation:

"I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall."

For Spitzer, that will likely be one toe at a time.

How does a person rise one toe at a time?

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Yes, they can

It hit me last night after I thought about Geraldine Ferraro's appalling comments: Hillary Clinton's emphasis on "a hiring decision" as a metaphor for the election now seems to have been a preparation for an increasingly overt effort to cast Barack Obama as an affirmative-action applicant and thereby draw upon the presumed resentments of economically hard-pressed white voters. Here's a job: are you gonna let the black guy take it away?

This effort of a piece with the claims that Obama's supporters are "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing trust-fund babies" or, more concisely, "the latte-sipping crowd." "Us" v. "them," racial warfare and class warfare: what a way to run a 21st-century Democratic primary campaign. Every time I think that Clinton and her surrogates can't go any lower, I'm reminded:

Yes, they can.