Futurliner

[“His Mind Is a Bus.” Zippy, July 3, 2019.]

Days of future past. A Wikipedia article says that “There are still two Futurliners unaccounted for.” I think that number is now done to one.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

The challenge and responsibility of personhood

John Green, from “Hawaiian Pizza and Viral Meningitis,” an episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed:

The challenge and responsibility of personhood, it seems to me, is to recognize personhood in others, to listen to others’ pain and take it seriously, even when you yourself cannot feel it.

These words are relevant at our southern border, and everywhere else.

Islands for sale

Two of them. Price: $13 million. Says their owner, “I thought I would have great thoughts out here.”

Committees, committees

It’s 1913. Diotima Tuzzi has a plan for the development of the Parallel Campaign, a public-relations project to celebrate Austria and the Emperor Franz Joseph in 1918:


Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities. 1930–1943. Trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).

Related reading
All OCA Robert Musil posts (Pinboard)

[Committees and more committees: it all sounds mighty familiar.]

TSWOCABTTS

It’s the easy-to-say acronym that’s sweeping this blog post: TSWOCABTTS, pronounced \ ˈswō-ka-bits \.

It is an acronym, not an initialism. The first T is silent, as in General Tso. The letters stand for Television Show Whose Opening Credits Are Better Than The Show.

My nominee: Welome Back, Kotter, whose opening credits I could watch (and have watched) again and again. Elaine’s nomination: The Flintstones. What’s yours?

The Irish “grand”

Stan Carey looks at the Irish “grand.” A bit late, but I better understand one of my grandmothers now. Worth clicking through for the astonishing headline from The Irish Times.

A related post
“Mother, you always pick the grandest things”

Spotted on a walk

Yes, spotted on Friday. Spotted. We placed this lost tiger leopard cub right in the middle of the sidewalk, so that any searcher would also spot it. Yesterday the cub was gone.

Thanks to Fresca for pointing out that it’s a leopard.

“Western-style liberalism”

From The Washington Post:

As the news conference wore on, Trump seemed to confuse a broader discussion of the fight over global governance with his personal grievances against Democrats.

When a reporter asked if the president agreed with Putin’s suggestion, in a recent newspaper interview, that “Western-style liberalism” was in decline, Trump had another thing in mind.

He criticized the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, which he said are “sad to look at” because they are “run by liberal people.”

I’d say that what’s sad to look at is the ignorance on display here. Compounded by cognitive decline?

*

The full exchange (with Peter Baker of The New York Times) is even worse. Thanks, C-SPAN:

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Thank you, Lester Ruff — that name sounds so much like something from a Nabokov novel; it must be a pseudonym, don’t you think? — for a challenging and enjoyable Newsday Saturday Stumper. It begins with a giveaway, just enough to inspire a mistaken sense of confidence: 1-A, six letters, “Big name in parliamentary procedure.” Which leads to another giveaway, 1-D, eight letters, “Tried to catch.” And then the ground steepens in all directions.

Some unusual clues:

From the Department of Lifelong Learning: 8-D, eight letters, “Device in a ‘busting miles’ crime.” An easy answer, but I didn’t know it’s called “busting miles.”

From the Department of Dimly Recalled Trivia: 9-D, five letters, “Seemingly indecisive poet.” That name too sounds like something from Nabokov.

And from the Department of Faintly Dated Foods: 46-D, six letters, “Meat served with pancakes.”

The clue and answer pairs I liked best, because they’re so fiendish: 13-D, six letters, “India and Pakistan have one.” And 38-D, eight letters, “‘Pygmalion’ lead character.” Eight? Uh, DOOLI’L’?

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Masonic grammar

“I didn’t know whom to believe!” Nellie DuBois (Jeanette Nolan), on the witness stand, in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Betrayed Bride” (October 22, 1964). So strange to hear the proper (and now stilted-sounding) whom on TV.

Related reading
All OCA Perry Mason posts (Pinboard) : “Whom are we kidding?”