Category Archives: Talk Amongst Yourselves

Mika Burns Paris — News at 11:00

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Paris Brule-t-il

My friend Geri sent me this link to her blog over at the Good News Network: about Mika Brzezinski refusing to cover Paris Hilton. Way to go Mika!

Mika Brzezinski is my new hero! The MSNBC anchorwoman refused to read a Paris Hilton story chosen as the lead for her morning newscast this week. This video shows her trying to burn the script and finally ripping it, and later shreading an updated copy. The public protest against her editors’ news judgement has brought her praise from both viewers and media professionals alike. She says, “I had one woman send me an email that said she was weeping tears of joy that someone finally took a stand… We were making a statement on our show. I hope it will start to change something… We need to have an open discussion about what is news and what is not.”
Good News Network – Editor’s Blog

Memories

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Three years ago this evening, my mother passed away.  I thought of this today, quite by accident.  I was clearing out old boxes of mail and what-not, and I came across the old cards of condolence.  As I read each one before consigning it to the recycling pile, it suddenly dawned on me what day it was — the third anniversary of her passing.

Helen Louise Byers - Graduation Photo

Here, then, is a link to a journal I kept of the last 25 days of her life.  I have just forced myself to re-read it, and have used up the better part of a box of Kleenex in the process…

How They Found Us

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Wit of the staircase has a regular feature that we like, “How They Found Us” in which Wit relates some of the search terms which led net-stumblers to alight on her site. We emulate that here.

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First off, the search with the highest “Ew” factor: DICK CHANEY CROTCH We can’t even begin to guess what they were thinking when they keyed that monstor in!

Alexandra Kosteniuk

And our favorite, which has been used dozens of times: pawn sex

Or is that the other way around?

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From The Caucus blog, over at The New York Times we get a story about Nelson Warfield joining Fred Thompson’s not-quite-a-campaign team. The story closes with this graph (emphasis mine):

Mr. Warfield has also emerged in this campaign season as one of the more pungent critics of Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the Republican presidential candidates, and he brings to the Thompson campaign a history that will surely come in handy as the race increases: One of Mr. Warfield’s earliest jobs was as a senior adviser to Ronald Lauder when he ran an unsuccessful primary campaign against Mr. Giuliani for the New York Republican mayor nomination in 1989. Mr. Warfield is known for having a long memory and a sharp tongue.
Giuliani Critic Joins Team Thompson – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog

So, while many people would value a long memory and a sharp tongue, there are others who prefer a sharp memory and a long tongue. Where do you line up on this hot topic?

Rags to Riches

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I was all set to write a speculative piece, wondering how long before people started to project the Rags to Riches victory in today’s Belmont Stakes as a metaphor for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential race, but I’m already too late for that. Here are some examples. First, from The Huffington Post, (2 hours ago):

Rags to Riches, despite having the historical odds stacked against her, is considered both exceptional and a real threat to her male counterparts. It is tempting to draw comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s status as the lone female presidential candidate
Glynnis MacNicol: It’s a Horse Race! – Politics on The Huffington Post

Or here, from Newsday (37 minutes ago):

“It makes sense to me,” said Diane Wells, 61, who was wearing a white straw cowboy hat. “It’s like a lot of women are going to vote for Hillary Clinton.”
Though not the same type of pioneer as Clinton, Rags to Riches was bucking some significant history when she became the first Filly to win Belmont in 102 years. The last filly to win the race was hotwalkerTanya in 1905. The only other female champion was Tanya, who won it in 1867.
The Belmont scene: Feminine mystique | Newsday.com

Oh well, it’s off to the races!

Toilet Seat Science

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A tip o’ the hat to /. for bringing this to our attention. Seems Hammad Siddiqi has published a scholarly scientific analysis of game theory applied to the question of whether to leave the toilet seat up or down. Here, in the introduction, he makes reference to two previous papers on the subject:

Both papers agree that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down in inefficient in the sense that it does not minimize the total cost of toilet seat operations per household. However, both papers fail to address an important concern: If a female finds the toilet seat in a wrong position then she will most probably yell at the male involved. This yelling inflicts a cost on the male. Based on this omission, women may argue that the analysis in these papers is suspect.
In this paper, we internalize the cost of yelling and model the conflict as a non-cooperative game between two species, males and females.We find that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down is inefficient. However, to our dismay, we also find that the social norm of always leaving the toilet seat down after use is not only a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies but is also trembling-hand perfect. So, we can complain all we like, but this norm is not likely to go away.
The Science Creative Quarterly » THE SOCIAL NORM OF LEAVING THE TOILET SEAT DOWN: A GAME THEORETIC ANALYSIS

A complete aside, but Pawn has for years maintained the authoritative assay on toilet tissue wrappers on the web. Check it out.

The Meaning of Time

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Some thoughts on Time and Eternity…

First, from a Google search we get this oddly typographic explanation:

So eternity is like a continuum, with no beginning, and no ending, just like a circle.

So what is time then? Time is simply a paranthetical insertion in eternity created by God so that man can relate to God in eternity. It’s like putting 2 “brackets” on eternity to create Time – with a beginning and an end!

You’re probably wondering, where am I getting this from? Where’s the proof? The Bible of course!
Free Community Church

Pawn much prefers this explanation from Baudolino by Umberto Eco:

“Time is an eternity that stammers”
— Baudolino, Chapter 33 Eco – Quotations

Word Police, Where are you??

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Bob Zitter, Chief Technology Officer of Home Box Office, wants to do away with DRM — the term, not the concept. Addressing the NCTA (a cable programming trade group), Zitter proposed changing the terminology. Here’s an excerpt from coverage at Boradcasting Cable:

Digital rights management (DRM) is the wrong term for technology that secures programmers’ content as it moves to new digital platforms … since it emphasized restrictions instead of opportunities.
Zitter suggested that “DCE,” or Digital Consumer Enablement, would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers “to use content in ways they haven’t before,”
NCTA: HBO’s Zitter Says DRM Is Misnomer – 5/9/2007 12:04:00 PM – Broadcasting & Cable

Okay, more accurately describe technology… Interestingly enough, Zitter chose to exercise both sides of his mouth; speaking with the reporter after his address, Zitter added that HBO was ready to provide HD content but was loath to do so until they could ensure that consumers could not “use it in ways they haven’t before” — by shutting down the analog component outputs on most cable boxes:

Theoretically, says Zitter, those analog outputs could be disabled, forcing consumers to use a secure digital connection to watch HD content. But current FCC rules don’t give HBO or cable operators that power, in order to protect consumers who bought early HDTV sets that don’t support digital copy protection. “They say we can’t turn off the analog output,” Zitter notes.

Isn’t it time that the word police cracked down on such blatant abuse of the language?