Jackdowry.
Dwight Meredith on real class war:
“We are finally in a position we’ve fought more than a decade to reach—a position where we can deal a death blow to the single most important source of income for radical legal groups all across the country,” wrote WLF Chairman Daniel Popeo. Among the foundation’s adversaries in the litigation, Popeo continues, are “groups dedicated to the homeless, to minorities, to gay and lesbian causes, and any other group that has drawn money from hard-working Americans like you and me to support its radical cause!”
—Also, Ignatz.
Barry on the Absent Fatso:
The Absent Fatso reflects a desire to avoid cruelty—the fat character who is there without really being there exists because mocking real people would seem too mean. But in fact, the cruelty is still there, and so are the real-life fat people; they’re just in the audience, rather than on screen. The Absent Fatso strategy doesn’t avoid cruelty so much as it makes it palatable.
—Also, on origami.
Trish Wilson on how, exactly, our family courts are stacked in favor of mothers over fathers:
Debra Schmidt is one such mother. Since Christmas time, 2001, Schmidt has been sitting in a California jail because she refuses to disclose the location of her two daughters, aged 7 and 9 at the time. She is protecting them from their father, Manuel Saavedra, who is a registered sex offender, an illegal alien who has been ordered deported, and an alcoholic. According to a press-release by Stephanie Dallam, research associate for The Leadership Council, the conviction came in the seven-year custody battle “after the judge refused to allow the jury to hear about Saavedra’s sex offense, his status as a registered sex offender, allegations of domestic abuse, or testimony by another ex-wife.”
George Washington on the Bush administration:
All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and Associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, controul counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities are distructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to Organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force—to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprizing minority of the Community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public Administration the Mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the Organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modefied by mutual interests. However combinations or Associations of the above description may now & then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, & to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Boing Boing points us to this Business 2.0 article on our free market at work, yup:
Borders Group used to pride itself on stocking its bookstores with the widest selection possible in a brick-and-mortar establishment. In its cooking section, for instance, there were always more than 10 titles about sushi, including Sushi for Parties, the more supportive Squeamish About Sushi, and The Encyclopedia of Sushi Rolls, a definitive tome that explains, among other things, how to spell your name in makimono.
Now, Borders is planning to yank half of those sushi how-tos from its shelves. Why? In part because HarperCollins, the nation’s third-largest publishing house, told it to.
Welcome to the world of “category management,” a bizarre and controversial place in which the nation’s biggest retailers ask one supplier in a category to figure out how best to stock their shelves. You’d expect HarperCollins to tell Borders which of its own books are hot, of course. But that’s not what’s going on here. Borders has essentially tapped Harper to advise it on what cookbooks to carry from all other publishers as well.
John held up this study for some richly deserved ridicule:
She says the toys preferred by boys—the ball and the car—are described as objects with the ability to be used actively and be propelled through space. Though the specific reasons behind the monkeys’ preferences have yet to be determined, she says, the preferences for these objects might exist because they afford greater opportunities for rough and active play—something characteristic of male play. Also, the motion capabilities of the object could be related to the navigating abilities that are useful for hunting, locating food or finding a mate.
Males, she says, may therefore have evolved preferences for objects that invite movement.
On the other hand, females may have evolved preferences for object color, relating to their roles as nurturers, Alexander notes. A preference for red or pink—the color of the doll and pot—has been proposed to elicit female behaviors toward infants that enhance infant survival, such as contact.
And then there’s Gail Armstrong’s take on the color pink:
I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use English.
Commenting is closed for this article.
