Garg’s Law

Anu Garg has proposed Garg’s Law, “a first law of the Internet”: “Do not forward anything you’ve received online without verifying it yourself.”

My interest in this law just spiked when I discovered that a teacher-education program is quoting the apocryphal Mark Twain.

Related posts
Apocryphal T.S. Eliot
Apocryphal Abraham Lincoln
Apocryphal George Orwell

Life with the McCrearys

This This American Life story (first aired in 2001 and recently rebroadcast) is one of the strangest and saddest accounts of family life I have ever encountered: “Yes There Is a Baby.” Extraordinary failings and extraordinary resourcefulness.

Trump on crying and begging for forgiveness

Donald Trump’s three tweets about Richard Blumenthal:

Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a phony Vietnam con artist! Never in U.S.[ ]history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal. He told stories about his Vietnam battles and conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion?

These tweets are a perfect example of whataboutism, a persistent Trump tactic. They’re also replete with falsehoods: while Blumenthal did lie about serving in Vietnam, there is no evidence that he told stories of battle and bravery. Nor is there any record of his defrauding voters or crying or begging for forgiveness.

To point out that Blumenthal, unlike Trump, at least served in the military would also be mere whataboutism. What most interests me about these tweets is the way that Trump characterizes remorse and shame — as a matter of crying like a baby and begging for forgiveness like a child. Trump has said that he has not cried since babyhood (2015) and is not a “big crier” (2016). He has also said that “I never like to say sorry because that means there was a mistake” and that “probably the last time I said sorry was a long time ago” (2015).

Remorse and shame require self-awareness and a functioning moral compass, an ability to reflect upon one’s actions and consider them in relation to some ethical standard. But being a man, on Trump’s terms, means just about never having to say you’re sorry. And never ever asking for forgiveness. That’s for kids.

[In combining the three tweets, I’ve removed the endless “. . .” clutter.]

Railroad emblems

  
[“Speaking of Pictures.” Photographs by Walter Sanders. Life, February 28, 1944. Click any image for a much larger view.]

These pages of railroad emblems jumped out as I was looking for something else. The photographs are from Chicago’s Proviso Yard. The captions note the principal terminals for each line.

Flying high on Dextrose

[Boys’ Life, January 1937.]

This issue of Boys’ Life runs on dextrose. The Curtiss Candy Company has prominent ads for Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, and Oh Henry! on the inside, and a full-color back cover for Baby Ruth, “the most delicious, tempting, nutritious candy bar you can eat.” And there’s a helpful tip: “You’ll want to serve sliced Baby Ruth at your parties — it is a welcome and appropriate dessert.” Curtiss always spells dextrose with a capital D. More Dextrose, Mrs. Higginbotham?

Dad, i.m.

My dad, James Leddy, died two years ago today. I was thinking about what to say about that, and then wrote a note to myself with the names of Kafka works and their translators. And I realized that without even trying, I was printing — small, slight slant, all caps — just as my dad did.

Index-card recommendation

Found this afternoon at our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer: Pen + Gear Graph-Ruled Index Cards. They’re a bit on the thin side, but they take ink well, without feathering or bleeding through. And they’re printed with a very fine light-blue grid (five squares to the inch) that doesn’t get in the way of what one is writing or drawing or mapping. These cards are much better than Oxford or Staples grid cards, and a fraction of the cost of Exacompta: 48¢ for 100 cards. Highly recommended.

[The “friendly neighborhood multinational retailer” is Wal-Mart. Pen + Gear is a store brand. The cards are manufactured in India. For those who are more particular than I am: the grid is not always perfectly aligned to the card.]

“The local milk people”

At George Bodmer’s Oscar’s Day: a sit-down with the local milk people. Should such meetings take place at a Neutral Milk Hotel?

If you missed it, here’s more about “the local milk people.”

Coal to solar

“It’s like, ‘This might be coal country, but I cannot afford $600 a month.’ And that’s for a home." The claim sounds like something for Snopes to debunk, but it’s true: the Kentucky Coal Museum is powered by solar energy.

Kafka’s Liberty

Kafka’s version of the Statue of Liberty, on view as young Karl Rossmann arrives in New York Harbor, seems prescient:


Franz Kafka, Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), trans. from the German by Michael Hoffman (New York: New Directions, 2002).

Unlike the bridge in Amerika that connects New York and Boston, the sword may not be mere error. When the first chapter of Amerika was published as a separate story in 1913, readers noticed the sword. Kafka let it stand in later printings. The Statue of Liberty, the real one, with the torch, became a subject of public debate this week.

Also from Amerika
An American writing desk : A highway : A bridge : Companions : Under-porters and errand-boys : In one door, out the other