Gulfstream

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000128.html John McWorter has a shot at Mark Abley, who goes a bit gaga over the Mohawk language, which uses the same word for goodness and law. Abley: “I had the impression that a three-hour philosophy seminar had just been compressed into a couple of minutes.”

McWorter: “Abley marvels that the Boro language has words that mean specific things like ‘to love for the last time’ and ‘to feel unknown and uneasy in a new place.’ Okay—but English has a word for when two acquaintances, through sharing an experience or reminiscence, experience a sense of deeper connection for the first time: BONDING. How spiritual we English speakers must be … then—get this—we have a word for the first time a couple has sexual intercourse: CONSUMMATE.”

“The subtext of Abley’s approach here is a school of thought that proposes that indigenous people are ‘realer’ than we are, more in touch with spiritual realities that ‘civilization’ has long wrested us from to our detriment. I understand that a good while ago, this notion was a useful way to counter the myth that indigenous people are ‘savages.’ But I wonder how many people who read a book like Abley’s need to learn that in 2003, and in the meantime the tradition too often smacks of clapping wildly when a child manages not to spill any of her food.” 16:00

http://www.msnbc.com/news/997124.asp Peter Jackson comments on goofs made in the first two movies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Newsweek: When Arwen and Frodo are being chased on horseback by the Ringwraiths, the soundtrack to the scene is a cantering horse. A canter is three beats, whereas a gallop—which is what the horses on screen are doing—is four very fast beats that often sound like a single beat.
Jackson: I should’ve—well, it’s too late to fire anyone. The damage has been done. 18:17

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091657/ Daily newspapers, unlike magazines, don’t directly respond to the letters of disgruntled readers. Jack Shafer says that a paper’s silence may sometimes give readers the impression that it is conceding error, and argues that they should mount a more active defence. (The Washington Post ombudsman’s report mentioned here is also worth reading.) 14:45

http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?031201ta_talk_desantis Irving Tobin reads every page of the Times (save the sports, Escapes and Circuits sections), and is one year, five months, and four days behind in his reading.

(Irving buddy, there’s a way out: “Select All” / “Mark All as Read.” It’s gonna hurt bad, you’ll wonder if you’ve done the right thing, if you’ve missed out on something terrifically important, something you needed to know, something that would’ve made you laugh, but you’ve gotta bury those doubts deep. Just blow your papers away my friend, blow them away. Tomorrow there will be more news.) 13:43

http://www.ecospheres.co.uk/ The EcoSphere: an air-tight glass sphere containing sea water, red shrimp and algae. Give it sunlight, and it goes for two years or more. 14:14

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1083010,00.html The politics of protest: “So long as the protesters look like the usual suspects—multiply pierced, Genoa-style activists in torn clothes and mohican haircuts—then, I’m told, the White House will not worry. They will be able to say Bush enjoys the global support of all but a few anarchist weirdos. If the demonstrators look like the UK equivalent of America’s ‘soccer moms’, regular people of all ages, including plenty of women—tricky to bring out on a weekday—then Washington may have to rethink.”

(Guy-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years (The Onion): “‘I’d always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth,’ said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. ‘Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong.’”) 12:35

http://theonion.com/3945/news1.html “Media Criticized For Biased Hometown Sports Reporting”:

“Photos almost always featured the home team, usually in a moment of victory,” Wilborough said. “When the players and coaches of the opposing team were discussed, it was usually in the context of how they were ‘destroyed’ or ‘stomped.’”

12:23

http://www.americanheritage.com/AMHER/2003/06/airpower.shtml “Airpower’s Century.” (Interview with Walter Boyne.) 11:04

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/19161084.html “This is getting ridiculous. I think it’s high time we all agreed on some common standards for use of the M4W and W4M postings.” 12:45

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip.html “The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick.” 11:18

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/movies/09ROUNDTABLE.html Conversation between screenwriters Quentin Tarantino and Brian Helgeland. I think I’m beginning to like Tarantino more than I like his films.

Tarantino: “… that’s all I could do in school, just write new scripts. Eventually, the teacher complained to my mom. And at some point, when my mom was mad at me, she said: ‘Oh, and by the way, this little writing career of yours? It’s over!’ And I thought, This little writing career? This little writing career? You have no vision. I will never buy you the house that Elvis bought his mother. And to this day I have not bought my mother a house. And I never will!” 17:35

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/nyregion/10CHIN.html On New York’s Chinese-language dailies. (Interesting tidbit: the text runs left-to-right on each, which makes it easier to incorporate English text—though isn’t the text on Chinese website left-to-right as well?) 15:01

http://www.artnewsonline.com/currentarticle.cfm?type=feature&
amp;art_id=1417 The most valuable & most desirable privately-held works of art in the world. (Somehow a Rembrandt is still in private hands.) 14:03

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/business/10STAT.html On states offering incentives and subsidies to companies in order to get them to relocate. Indiana Governor Joseph E. Kernan says: “I understand the argument that taking jobs away from Boston and putting them here is nationally a zero-sum game. … But Indiana, like virtually every other state, is not going to unilaterally disarm.”

Richard Stallman has a solution: “… the states should increase their bargaining power against companies by forming a union. We could call it the ‘United States of America.’ …” 13:13

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/weekinreview/09NUMB.html On the changing meaning of “media bias”: “In fact, ABC or CBS is far more likely to be described as biased than Mr. Limbaugh—or for that matter, the very liberal Michael Moore. That would have puzzled Harold Ickes, who reserved his most caustic attacks on 1930’s press bias for partisan columnists. But today bias is applied only to those who won’t own up to having an ax to grind.” 17:31

http://www.nature.com/nsu/031103/031103-18.html Sometimes, Google lets me down: full-text search of 3 billion documents is a wonderful thing, but if you only have generic keywords, Google isn’t able to do its thing. This article, which summarises two papers on the amount of pollution ships emit, contains a graphic showing pollution levels over the Atlantic; the shipping lanes are clearly visible. I’d like to see a similar map of the whole world, but specific searches (for the authors’ names, etc.) produce nothing useful, and all other search possibilities are hopelessly generic… (The “large image” link doesn’t work.) 14:10

http://www.michaelspecter.com/ny/2003/2003_04_14_peta.html Good article on PETA and its savvy founder Ingrid Newkirk. (“I am not only uninterested in having children. I am opposed to having children. Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it is nothing but vanity, human vanity.”) I can’t figure out PETA’s line on pets; PETA believes that animals are not ours to use “for entertainment” (among other things), which would seem to preclude pet ownership in itself, but their site has numerous factsheets on how one should behave toward “companion animals.” 12:01

http://news.google.com/news?q=israel poll A poll found that 59 percent of Europeans think that Israel is a threat to world peace; no country polled higher. This does not mean that Europeans think that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, as many of these headlines insist. (“Israel No. 1 Rogue State: EU,” “Israel is No 1 threat to peace, says EU poll,” “Israel biggest threat to peace: EU poll.”) A country can be a threat without being the greatest threat.

The wording of the question is important, too. Were the respondents asked whether the existence of Israel posed a threat to world peace, in the same way that the existence of, say, nuclear weapons pose a threat to world peace? Newspapers often don’t cover polls well, I find. 18:09

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090675/ “You would think the following scene occurs every day: Cops pull over a speeding vehicle and search for drugs. Crack is found. All three passengers insist the drugs are not theirs. So the cops arrest them all. The constitutional dispute today is whether the cops had probable cause to arrest everybody, or just the driver, or just the guy next to the wad of bills in the glove compartment, or just the guy in the back seat with the crack. All of which is interesting. But even more interesting is that this is a case of ‘first impression’ for the high court—meaning no one has brought this kind of challenge before. Apparently, in every other car ever stopped, someone has cheerfully admitted to owning the drugs.” Great article. The justices are in fine form for this one too. 16:18

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090579/ Indian Casinos and Californian politics: “Public support for the tribes has also been undercut by revelations that profits from casinos have flowed to so few Indians. The financial rewards of casino ownership are greatest for tribes with the fewest members—which, perversely, assures a concentration of gambling wealth in a very few hands. Among tribes that have done well for the very few: the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, whose casino generates $100 million a year for only about 110 tribal members ($900,000 each); and the Table Mountain Rancheria tribe (Sacramento), whose 100 members each receive approximately $350,000 per year.” 15:49

http://www.supafamous.com/archives/2003/11/000716.shtml 17:50

http://www.portrait.gov.au/content/exhibit/morley/m1.jpg The State Library of Victoria is currently running an exhibition of Lewis Morley photographs. (Morley is most famous for his photo of Christine Keeler seated naked behind a chair.) The photographs are mostly interesting for who they are of—largely celebrities of 60s London—so it’s a good thing that they’re accompanied by decent, often wry, notes. (From one we learn that only two of the many couples that appear in the exhibition are still together.)

(I decided to see Swimming Pool after seeing this photo of Charlotte Rampling —big, on a light box (much better that way)—in the center of the room.) 16:17

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/3234029.stm World Beard and Moustache Championship pictures! “Americans made a stronger showing than expected, capturing four titles.” 12:32