Interests:I'm a news junkie. I love the written word, Stephen Sondheim, impressionism, photograpy and the New York Mets. Expertise:Procrastinating and whining.
I grew up in Manhattan. One of the little things that has always irked me is the whole "aks" for "ask" thing. Apparently, it's not just a New York thing and I was a complete ignoramus about the whole thing. Once upon a time? Ask was actually pronounced "axe". Really. Something to do with axiom. Weird, huh? And this was all the way through the Middle Ages, and really only changed in the 1600s. Why the change then to ask? Possibly William Shakespeare. Don't believe me? Take a listen for yourself:
I love NPR.
What a difference a day makes. The Mets are back in 2nd. Sigh.
Heard the news and just laugh because really, what else can you do? On Morning Edition just now? Citibank reported that its losses were some few million billion (gah) less than everyone thought so, all good! Does that seem a little odd? Just me? Never mind.
I love The Daily Show for pointing out things like this to me:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that we need more troops in Afghanistan (LAT). I can't imagine that there are many people who would argue, but...from where are we going to get these troops? Yes, I did hear that we are going to start withdrawing troops from Iraq but are we really going to pull troops from Iraq only to send them to another war zone? And I know that it wouldn't be those troops going home that would then get diverted to Afghanistan, but just how much are we going to ask of our men and women in uniform? And no, I don't have any alternatives to offer except to observe that this really, really sucks.
W has lifted the executive ban on drilling on offshore drilling and is urging Congress to lift the congressional ban to improve production (WaPo). Which, leaving aside whether or not this is a good idea, how come no one is addressing the fact that none of that is going to make a difference if they don't ramp up things on the refinery end? Is it my imagination that this was a problem even before Katrina?
And you know how Congress has overridden W's veto on the whole Medicare thing (NYT)? This is actually only the third time that's happened, and my question re: that is why is it only 3? Is it that Congress hasn't believed itself in the laws? Or is it because Congress, even in the face of W's super popularity in recent years, has found that its backbone is made up of seaweed. Wet seaweed.
I'm loving our government.
Incidentally, they've been talking about Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut on NPR and his whole backing Senator John McCain for PotUS thing, and you know what? While I might not agree with him about McCain, it's his right to do that. Lieberman has stated that he's not looking at consequences and that he's doing what he thinks is right. The thing is that while I can admire that about him, he does have to be prepared to face the possible repercussions. He says he is. Does it suck to pay for sticking to your beliefs. Yes. But this is real life and sometimes that happens.
I just heard a piece on Morning Edition about speed dating for the green among us. One guy didn't hand in his card because no one there was green enough for him. Yikes. How green is he? He doesn't have a car. He has a bicycle. When he has errands that require a car, he makes a list and does the Zip thing (that I'm guessing, since he just said he rents one). So why they can't all be him, all these women who didn't even own Priuses? Not cutting it for him.
What can I say? Dating is hard. More on that some other day.
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