The best humorist extant is now styled Sir Terry Pratchett.
Regrettably, no sword is included in the box.
And by “best humorist”, I mean right up there with Benchley, Thurber, Perelman, that lot.
If you have not read at least three of his Discworld novels, you cannot count yourself literate.
If the reason you have not read even one of the Discworld novels is because it’s fantasy, then you’re a hopelessly blinkered snob.
.
Chelsea started to get out and about Cairo today, taking a horseback tour out to the Pyramids:
They are in a type of artificial desert with Cairo spreading out around them, the pictures I’m sure you all have seen are shot from a specific angle to make it seem like they are isolated in the middle of the desert. It was still magical and amazing to see them rise up from behind a hill as we were riding out.
…
I won’t be taking horses out the next time though. The horses are malnourished and are whipped to exhaustion everyday.
…
The area around the pyramids is abysmally poor. You ride through alleys of huts with dirty barefoot children waving at you while their mothers try to sell you things like individual packets of Keenex. Their is trash everywhere.
…
As bad as I felt for the horses, I suppose it is a way for the people there to make some type of living. I am still conflicted about the whole experience.
She took pictures, but felt they were too blurry to post.
Her classes will start Saturday, 06 September.
Google map I’ll try to maintain of places she goes to. So far, only AUC and the pyramids.
View Larger Map
[I've got to say, I hate the Google map interface when it comes to creating custom maps and passing links around. I very often cannot get the display I want. Let me know, then, if this link shows you something different than what I claim it does.]
Google map of the pyramids area, showing the very sharp demarcation between the desert and the irrigated urban area of Cairo.
View Larger Map
[Sorry, no. Google Maps is being a useless pile of rotting camel dung, and will not save the coordinates and zoom for the area I want to display. Why do these idiots make it so bloody hard to that? Why can't I find instructions on how to do that? OK, it's working now. What the hell?]
Cairo is UTC/GMT +2, seven hours ahead of Houston time, so when it is noon here, it’s seven p.m. there.
I am using Lingua-naut to look up basic Arabic phrases.
My results for this quiz on commonly confused words?
I’m an English Genius! I got 100 percent!
This test was too easy. Everyone with a high school diploma should be able to ace this.
There was exactly one question where I had to think for a few seconds about which word to choose.
I hesitated over another question involving punctuation, rather than spelling, because I didn’t understand at first that that’s what was being asked for, and then because I had trouble visually distinguishing between the two marks in question.
The graphs at the results page are all heavily skewed towards high scores, even on the Expert section. I’d like to see something more like a two-tailed bell curve. On the other hand, it looks like the sample size is relatively small, so far, and I expect that only people who care about grammar and vocabulary at all will bother to take the quiz.
[Ahem. This post has been up for, oh, two minutes, and I've already corrected four or five errors.]
In the last two days, I’ve come across three new words which I can barely wait to work in to conversation:
Fleam: “a tooth of a saw shaped like an isosceles triangle”.
[I eagerly anticipate my visits to Toolmonger, unlike many sites I visit with a sense of dutiful dread, like daily visits to the dentist's office. I speak here of sites I agree with; the ones I surveil for the purposes of knowing the enemy are another matter entirely.]
Frottage: “2. the act of obtaining sexual stimulation by rubbing against a person or object”
[Sorry, I can't remember where I saw this. If I find it again, I'll add the link.]
Mansuetude: “the quality or state of being gentle“.
[The source article, "The Myth of Moderate Islam", is a must-read, and is in my "Blog Fodder" bookmark list.]
My vocabulary is mostly written–I know how to read and write lots of words I can’t pronounce. (For instance, I am not a fan of Tennesee Williams’ play, The Glass Min-uh-juh-REE) This greatly amuses Friend Pat, almost making up for the fact that in other matters, I’ve Already Heard About It, and I am Always Right. Recently, I’ve developed the habit of Googling “pronunciation wordidontknow” which returns on-line dictionary entries with embedded sound clips of authoritative pronunciation.
When I started reading up on legal affairs, I started seeing a lot of references to the Supreme Court announcing that it would hear a given case, known as “granting certiorari“. In my head, this sounds like “sert-ee-or-ee”–clearly not correct, but typical of the way I pronounce unfamiliar words.
I just got around to doing the Google trick, and discovered that no one knows how to pronounce it: there seems to be considerable controversy. Not even the Justices themselves agree.
Apparently, scholars of classical Latin would pronounce it with a hard “K”: “kair-tee-oh-rahr-eye”. “But you would probably be laughed out of court if you tried it Cicero’s way. Law Latin is only a distant cousin of the classical tongue.”
If I need to impress, I guess I’ll say, “ser-she-ah-RAR-ee“.
So, you, or someone you know, is thinking about enlisting, “moving to the sound of the guns”. What should you read to prepare yourself?
Beats the bloody-be-heckers out of me. I’d guess maybe Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, famous, even notorious for its provocatively pro-military views. But it’s SF, and the lady in question is not a fan, to put it mildly. (If she were, of course, she’d already have read her Heinlein, including the inspiring but now-quaint retelling of the American Revolution, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
How about movies? I remember Private Benjamin being an entertaining portrayal of a privileged young woman who goes to boot camp in rebellion against her smothering parents and intended husband. An Officer and a Gentleman shows a full-of-himself young man also benefiting from almost washing out in Basic. (Turns out Larz’s Mom has already ordered Benjamin. I can’t wait to find out how that goes.)
But that was all I could come up with, so I wrote to Grim Beorn, a very literate warrior indeed. I knew he’d published reading lists for folk already in the service, but didn’t remember seeing anything for civilians considering enlistment. Grim kindly pointed me to his standard post on the topic. It starts out with a story about adjusting to the culture in Iraq, but then moves on:
“An eighteen year old arriving at West Point,” says Grim, “already knows nothing but High School. What he needs to learn is how to be a hero.”
His suggestions:
Grim explains:
This will teach our soldiers what they need to know to relate to the sheikhs, and indeed many other cultures abroad. But it also does the soldier a great kindness, as it makes him an educated man. These are exactly the things you need to know to comprehend the Western tradition. With these as your base, nothing in America’s history is forbidding.
In his email, Grim goes on to make what, for me, was a very surprising suggestion: The Hobbit, which offers “a deep but subtle introduction into the pieces I suggest in the standard reply”. It’s been a long time since I’ve read The Hobbit, because I prefer the longer, sterner Lord of the Rings. Precisely because of that sterness, and the heavier use of myth and fantasy, I rejected LotR for Larz. And because, in contrast, I’m used to considering The Hobbit as, well, fluffier, more of a children’s book, I didn’t even think of it. But Grim’s got it right: it’s a fairly easy read, and shows very well the transformation of a quiet stick-in-the-mud civilian into a hero. I’m going to have to read it again myself.
He continued:
Try her on the Norse sagas — they involve very much sailing and hardship, and serve as an advanced course in heroism. Don’t worry that they aren’t “modern,” because really, the technology changes aren’t that important. What really does matter is the culture, and the culture of fighting men (and, these days, women) is a thing long ago perfected. We just need to continue to remind ourselves of what our ancestors knew.
Then he said something else I’ve never considered, but take very much to heart:
In addition, the slightly alien feel of the sagas will prepare her for thinking about a slightly alien world like the Navy. It’s an important skill that she should learn, how to think about the meaning behind customs and traditions that are different from what she already knows.
Whether Larz reads this stuff or not, it’s clear that I, myself have some catching up to do. She’s young and fit and strong and can no doubt even now whip my flabby middle-aged butt anytime she chooses, but I will not be outdone on the reading front.
Then, as a parting gift for boot camp, I can in good conscience give her selections from here, the official Marine Reading List. This list also includes another work of science fiction that has come under peacenik fire: Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. This, too, is a tale of a boot-camp, but a very strange one, one for grade-school children in outer space. I would never have guessed that the Marines would take that as an authoritative introduction to military life–but now I see that the “slightly alien feel” Grim speaks of may well have played a role.
Another important item from that list is available on-line: the Marine Corp manual on Warfighting [PDF]. This is golden: the inside skinny on how Marines think about the thing they do better than any other force in the world.
Anyway, thanks, Grim, for the reply, and for your website generally, which has over the past couple-three years given me considerable insight into the Warrior Spirit, as exemplified by this from G.K. Chesterton:
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, –
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.
A couple of other bits I dug out while writing this:
Confederate Yankee’s take on LTC Dave Grossman’s original Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs essay (quoted in its entirety). Everybody, sheep or sheepdog, should read this.
Bill Whittle. Wordy, but oh so satisfying:
Here’s his recent piece on fighter pilots, and the fighter pilot, and what he taught America’s military about war fighting generally. Part 1 Part 2 This is survival material.
Honor, the short, sweet essay that made Whittle’s reputation. “…The many, many sergeants…”
I cannot hear or read the word “sergeant” anymore and not think of this essay.
Freedom, and the price that must be paid for it. Why we have the Second Amendment. Whittle hits his stride.
Empire: “For the first time in history, a nation powerful enough to rule the world has simply refused to do so.” Damn betcha, and why, exactly why, my precious, precious niece does an honorable thing by volunteering to go forth and put herself in harm’s way.
War. Why we’re at it, right now, written at a time so many of us were not sure.
History. A little bit about how we got here, about another time when everybody knew “The war is an abject and utter failure. What everyone thought would be a quick, decisive victory has turned into an embarrassing series of reversals.” And how it all turned around on an insignificant mound of dirt known as Little Round Top, with an insignificant amateur named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as the hinge pin.
Whittle. He’s one of the good guys, and does not write often enough. Read all his stuff.
From Stephen Cooke:
Anyway, this is why I like Coke. Coca-Cola sits there in a nice red can, and says, “You remember me, don’t you? Remember all the times we shared? I still love you, you know. I am timeless. I am America. Drink me. Kennedy did. Ike did. Elvis did. Come home. Come home to Coke.”
Pepsi stands on the corner and says, “20 bucks. Take it or leave it.”
[update]
Woo Hoo!
This post is the number one return on Google for “stephen cooke coke pepsi”.
Cooke’s original post, though, seems to have fallen down the memory hole.
From the Volokh conspiracy, my favorite law site.
Burro — An ass.
Burrow — A hole in the ground.
Bureau — A organization of people who don’t know the difference between the first two.”
Then there’s this:
Strc prst skrz krk
(put an upside-down ^ on the c and pronounce it “ch”) contains no vowels and means “Stick [your] finger through [your] throat.” Also, the Czech word for “death” is “smrt.”
Isn’t that just the handiest damn phrase you’ve ever read?
I just stumbled across this fascinating comparison of Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring fantasy novels with Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs fantasy operas.
Tolkien well may have written his epic as an “anti-Ring” to repair the damage that Wagner had inflicted upon Western culture. Consciously or not, the Oxford philologist who invented Hobbits has ruined Wagner before the popular audience. It recalls the terrible moment in Thomas Mann’s great novel Doktor Faustus when the composer Adrian Leverkuhn, finishing his Faust cantata in the throes of syphilitic dementia, announces: “I want to take it back!” His amanuensis asks, “What do you want to take back?” “Beethoven’s 9th Symphony!” cries Leverkuhn. Leverkuhn (on the strength of a bargain with the Devil) has written a work whose objective is to ruin the ability of musical audiences to hear Beethoven.
Tolkien has taken back Wagner’s Ring. That may be his greatest accomplishment, and a literary accomplishment without clear precedent. To be sure, The Lord of the Rings is not a great work of literature to be compared to Cervantes or Dostoyevsky. But it is a great landmark of culture nonetheless. Its revival in a reasonably faithful cinematic version has far-reaching effects on the popular mind.
And this:
The details are far less important than the common starting point: the crisis of the immortals. Wagner’s immortal gods must fall as a result of the corrupt bargain they have made with the giants who built Valhalla. Tolkien’s immortal Elves must leave Middle-earth because of the fatal assistance they took from Sauron. The Elves’ power to create a paradise on Middle-earth depends upon the power of the three Elven Rings which they forged with Sauron’s help. Thus the virtue of the Elven Rings is inseparably bound up with the one Ring of Sauron. When it is destroyed, the power of the Elves must fade. More than anything else, The Lord of the Rings is the tragedy of the Elves and the story of their renunciation.
What Tolkien has in mind is nothing more than the familiar observation that the high culture of the West arose and fell with the aristocracy, which had the time and inclination to cultivate it. With the high culture came the abuse of power associated with the aristocracy; when this disappears, the great beauties of Western civilization and much of its best thought disappear with it. That is far too simple, and in some ways misleading, but it makes a grand premise for a roman-a-clef about Western civilization.
A pill that stops menstruation has been approved by the FDA.
One of Ann Althouse’s readers comments,
I know that my opinion isn’t the popular one here, but menstruation, like childbirth, is just part of being a woman. If another woman would want to escape it, then sure, she should go for it. But, not being punny, it just wouldn’t feel right to sidestep it.
An interesting response to the “unnatural” allegation showed up on The Volokh Conspiracy, my favorite legal blog. (Uh, you do have a favorite legal blog that you read every day, right? No? What kind of citizen are you?)
…there’s nothing “natural” about the amount of menstruation that a 21st Century woman does in her lifetime. For most of human history, women started having babies shortly after they reached sexual maturity (mid-teens), and continued having them on a pretty regular basis for the next 20-odd years.
…
every time the woman ovulates, the ovum has to punch a hole in her ovary to reach the fallopian tubes. These holes heal, but each new hole/regrowth has the potential to result in mutated cells as part of the regrowth. Such mutations can lead to ovarian cancer. So the unnaturally large number of ovulations a modern woman undergoes in her lifetime contribute to ovarian cancer. By preventing ovulation and menstruation, this risk is reduced (among the other benefits of the new pill).
[Note: this commenter notes he's quoting an eight-year-old article from memory.]
Of course, being an SF fan, I immediately thought of Connie Willis’ Nebula Award winning story, “Even the Queen”. From a spoiler laden review:
The main joke of the story is that the “Cyclists” of the future - inspired by “a mix of pre-Liberation radical feminism and the environmental primitivism of the eighties” - reject the technological advance offered by the abolition of periods, in the name of “freedom from artificiality, freedom from body-controlling drugs and hormones, freedom from the male patriarchy that attempts to impose them on us” (basically much the same rhetoric used in our world by the more evangelical advocates of natural childbirth). Perdita, the narrator’s younger daughter, is thinking of joining the Cyclists; the narrator herself uncomfortably defends her decision in the name of Personal Sovereignty, “the inherent right of citizens in a free society to make complete jackasses of themselves”.
Oh, and via Ann again, a list of euphemisms for “period”. Um, some aren’t very euphemistic. “Full Stop.”
Bad Behavior has blocked 429 access attempts in the last 7 days.