On this date in 1884, the cornerstone was laid for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. (We got the statue for free — the pedestal we had to pay for.) One of the most historic fundraisers was the Pedestal Art Loan Exhibition, to which Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and others donated manuscripts for auction. Emma Lazarus donated a poem called “The New Colossus,” which sold for $1,500, but was mostly forgotten until 1945, when it was inscribed over the main entrance at the base of the statue. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Vignettes from Disney World
On a bus ride from the hotel to one of the parks, we were seated behind a short, fat hayseed with an enormous head . . . we passed a number of landmarks and attractions, none of which seemed to capture his interest. Then, just as we arrived at the Magic Kingdom, he jumped halfway out of his seat, pointed to a clearing in the woods and shouted, “Turkeys! Wild turkeys, right there!” Read more →
Thanks, Bill!
Microsoft said Tuesday that it will boost its dividend, buy back shares and offer a $3-per-share one-time payout as part of a plan to return up to $75 billion to shareholders over the next four years. — “Microsoft to share its wealth with investors,” CNET News.com Bill Gates announced that he will donate his share of the proceeds — he owns over 1 billion shares, so that comes to $3+ billion — to charity. Read more →
At the Dog Park
This is a picture of 14 pugs in a hatchback, although you can only see five of them really well. Ours — Lightning — is the one in the middle. We tried taking pictures with the hatchback open so you could see the dogs better, but they all started jumping out, so we had to abandon that plan . . . Read more →
Good Game! (Bleccch)
My son’s hockey game got completely out of hand. I’ve never seen a game like that . . . they led 11-9 before losing 12-11. My boy had eight goals. Neither team could stop anything. Read more →
Antifreeze
A New Jersey woman recently pleaded not guilty to murdering her brother-in-law by serving him a blended cocktail of pineapple juice, maraschino cherries, and several ounces of antifreeze. Interesting fact: Although antifreeze is toxic, it actually tastes pretty good, making it an ideal choice for knocking off spouses and boyfriends. Read more →
Tediocrity
tediocrity (Te`di*oc”ri*ty) n. pl. tediocrities The state or quality of doing tedious things that are of mediocre value. Ability to do, achieve, or perform in a tedious, mediocre manner. — Jon Kern Read more →
Verbification
Reading an excerpt from the tray liner at KFC: We plate your food while it’s still hot, and serve it at the peak of flavor perfection. “Tell me something I don’t know,” my son says. Read more →
Ghosts of Christmas Past
I found an old Christmas card from my son this weekend, the kind of thing that’s looked upon wistfully by probably no one except the child’s parents. Here it is anyway . . . Dear Mom and Dad, I wish you an awesome Christmas and I would’ve bought you an expensive present but I couldn’t afford one. I still love you though. Love, Casey Read more →
Strike a Pose
In Iraq this week, Saddam Hussein was handed over to his countrymen to answer for his deeds, including genocide and crimes against humanity. The possibility now exists for Iraq to become the second functioning democracy — along with Israel — in the Middle East. I think this is great news, but if you’re pessimistic and having trouble striking the correct cynical pose, here are some suggestions. Read more →
Pacifism
The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of western countries. . . . Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler… Read more →
Mixed Reviews
Christopher Hitchens takes a chainsaw to Fahrenheit 9/11. Here’s an excerpt, on the film’s closing quote from Orwell’s 1984: A short word of advice: In general, it’s highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It’s also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history. Read more →
Predictable, Unfunny and Eminently Forgettable
A Slate article confirms my 20-year suspicion that Garfield the witless comic strip is just an adjunct to Garfield the marketing empire, rather than the other way around: Read more →
Meet the Press
Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990’s were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq. . . . Read more →
One Thing Bill Clinton and I Have in Common
. . . I was once the only kid at an Easter egg hunt who didn’t get a single egg, not because I couldn’t find them but because I couldn’t get to them fast enough. — Bill Clinton, My Life Read more →
One Never Knows
A former neighbor of ours, a man about my age with two young children, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. His doctor says he has a year to live. A friend of mine from grad school died recently of stomach cancer, age 38. He too was married with two young daughters. One never knows when the blow may fall . . . Read more →
Clinton on Iraq
After 9/11, let’s be fair here, if you had been President, you’d think, Well, this fellow bin Laden just turned these three airplanes full of fuel into weapons of mass destruction, right? Arguably they were super-powerful chemical weapons. Think about it that way. So, you’re sitting there as President, you’re reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, Well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I’ve got to do that. Read more →
This Just In
I’m listening to a radio ad in which a man purporting to be a medical doctor is pitching an herbal rejuvenator: Call now and I’ll send you my free report on aging and its effect on energy and sex drive! Let me guess: they go down . . . Read more →
I Sit By The Window
A loyal subject of these second-rate years, I proudly admit that my finest ideas are second-rate, and may the future take them as trophies of my struggle against suffocation. I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out. — Joseph Brodsky, “I Sit By The Window” Read more →
Meet the Press
. . . I do think there was what amounted to a kind of conspiracy to get the U.S. into a war against Iraq, if we define the term as a secretive plot involving a group within the government but excluding many important officials, who bent events and information to their undeclared purpose. Although you’d have to say it was a barely undeclared purpose. — Washington Post Associate Editor Robert G. Kaiser Is it really a secret conspiracy if it involves a congressional vote and 17 U.N. resolutions? Read more →