“Very, very insensitive”

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, thinks that it’s inappropriate to talk about climate change right now. It’s “very, very insensitive,” he says.

The same kind of response follows a mass shooting: it’s not the time to talk about gun-ownership rights. And another shooting follows.

Related posts
Too early again : December 14, 2012

[“Right now”: Irma.]

Bill McKibben in Alaska

At The New Yorker, Bill McKibben explains: “I Went All the Way to the Alaskan Wilderness to Escape Donald Trump, But You Don’t Have To.” McKibben acknowledges that while in Alaska’s Brooks Range he still thought about Trump, but without reacting, because “he wasn’t there to break into my thoughts, or my Twitter timeline, at every turn.” McKibben’s astonishing conclusion: “It’s probably not necessary to get quite so far back into the woods; any place without Internet will do.” And also without newspapers? Radio? Television?

I offered Bill McKibben free advice about technology and distraction in 2008. I’ll offer some more advice now: Stay off Twitter. Or check it just a couple of times a day. Or block certain users. Managing one’s attention can begin at home. Self-reliance and all that.

[The title of McKibben’s piece bespeaks such condescension, such privilege. Titles aren’t always the work of the writer: was someone at The New Yorker having a little fun at the McKibben’s expense? My alternative title: “I Went All the Way to the Alaskan Wilderness to Escape Donald Trump, But You Can’t Afford To.”]

WSJ Puzzle

The Wall Street Journal claims to offer “America’s most elegant, adventurous and addictive crosswords and other word games.” I’m not sure that’s so, but the crosswords at WSJ Puzzle are excellent: challenging and clever, not corny, not contrived. And free. I especially like the wit that turns up in non-theme clues for ordinary words. In today’s puzzle by Roger and Kathy Wienberg, for instance, 71-Across, five letters: “Tell tale item.” No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.

[“Not corny, not contrived”: I find The New York Times crossword too often corny or contrived or both.]

A 1957 Mongol advertisement

[Life, April 1, 1957. Click for a larger view.]

One year earlier, an Eberhard Faber advertisement touted the Mongol as writing 2,162 words for one cent. In that ad Mongols were priced at fifteen cents for two. So one Mongol equalled 2,162 × 7.5, or 16,215 words. Now it’s 1957, and a Mongol writes fifteen more words, but the price per word is higher: only 1,623 words for one cent.

The number that really commands my attention in this ad: 88. As in: “88 per cent of America’s writing is done with a woodcased pencil.” The importance of being analog.

Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard)

Mark Blank

Fresca invites readers to add new words to the speech balloons in a Mark Trail panel. Fun.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

The first Paul Martin

I just learned that the actor Jon Shepodd has died at the age of eighty-nine. He played Paul Martin in the 1957–58 season of Lassie, with Cloris Leachman as his wife Ruth. When Leachman decided to leave the show, Hugh Reilly and June Lockhart were brought in to play Timmy’s parents.

A page from Jon Provost’s website has several photographs of Provost (Timmy Martin) and Shepodd in Lassie days and in recent years.

Related reading
All OCA Lassie posts (Pinboard)

[Cloris Leachman on a farm? No.]

A Larry Rivers Camel pack

At the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Larry Rivers: (Re)Appropriations. The exhibition page includes a slideshow. To the left, a greatly reduced Cream Camel (1980). Any larger and I’d start thinking about smoking.

[See also the sidebar: “Don’t look for premiums or coupons,” &c.]

Mark Trail recycles

[Mark Trail, August 8, September 7, 2017.]

Yet another instance of this comic strip recycling materials. Yet another instance of this comic strip recycling materials.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[The story of this shiny man and his crooked cohorts has been going since April, at least. That’s the same storm in each panel. Keeps rainin’ all the time. Keeps rainin’ all the time.]

One more Rick Veach story

One more story about Rick, which I just thought of:

Several years ago we ordered a new under-the-cabinet range hood to replace the one that came with our house. Rick was working in one of our bathrooms when two young men delivered the new hood. After removing the old hood, they discovered that the new hood was ⅛" longer than the space cut beneath our cabinet. The standard measurement for range hoods had apparently changed in fifty-something years. These guys did not, as they told Rick, do carpentry. Rick told them that he would install the hood for us.

Which he did. He also did the duct work to hook the hood up properly, something that had never been done. End of story.

Not famous

Thinking about Rick made me think of this opinion piece in The New York Times, by Emily Esfahani Smith, “You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.”: “We all have a circle of people whose lives we can touch and improve — and we can find our meaning in that.”

[But a distinction between “extraordinary” and “ordinary” lives? I don’t buy in. There are no ordinary lives.]