Author: NewMexiKen

An Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces

From The New Yorker, Louis Menand takes apart Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

The first punctuation mistake in “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” (Gotham; $17.50), by Lynne Truss, a British writer, appears in the dedication, where a nonrestrictive clause is not preceded by a comma. It is a wild ride downhill from there. “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” presents itself as a call to arms, in a world spinning rapidly into subliteracy, by a hip yet unapologetic curmudgeon, a stickler for the rules of writing. But it’s hard to fend off the suspicion that the whole thing might be a hoax.

More importantly, he goes on to talk about writing and the writer’s “voice.”

Do they read their own paper?

From The Daily Howler:

Who except the New York Times could come up with a headline like this? Yesterday, Ralph Nader chose a running-mate. So here is today’s Times headline:

NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINE: Beating Kerry to Punch, Nader Picks a No. 2

The Times takes a pot-shot at Kerry again. And what is so comic about that headline? There isn’t a single word about Kerry in the report which the headline adorns! The reporter, Mark Glassman, doesn’t mention the Dem—but a fearless Times editor knew his brief, and concocted a headline which tweaked hapless John. This kind of work is not unknown at the Washington Times; phantom headlines are sometimes seen there. But now, the practice migrates to Gotham, infecting our most broken newspaper.

13-time Oscar nominee…

Meryl Streep is 55 today. Ms. Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress in Sophie’s Choice and for Best Supporting Actress in Kramer vs. Kramer. Born in New Jersey, Ms. Streep is a graduate of Vassar College and the mother of four children.

Dan Brown…

author of the best-selling The Da Vinci Code is 40 today. According to The Writer’s Almanac:

The Da Vinci Code has gone through more than fifty printings, and there are now more than 7.5 million copies of it in print. Almost 100,000 copies are still being sold each week. The book has sparked a controversy in some religious circles, especially in the Catholic Church. The book argues that much of what we hold to be true about Christianity was actually decided at a single meeting of bishops at Nicea in modern-day Turkey, in the year 325. According to the book, it was at that meeting that church leaders decided they wanted to consolidate their power base and establish dogmas for all Christians to follow—and that was the beginning of the Catholic Church. The narrator says that up until that point not all Christians believed in a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture.

He can’t get rid of the thing

From Dwight Perry at Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times:

Steve Kavanaugh of Seattle has broken the U.S. boomerang record for consecutive catches, snagging 826 return flights to better the old mark of 819, the Washington Boomerang Club announced.

Not only that, you have to like his chances for Comeback Player of the Year.

Could Clinton run for vice president?

Earlier today NewMexiKen asked what ever happened to the idea of Clinton as Kerry’s running mate? It was a rhetorical question, but RWC commented that “He isn’t allowed; the VP has to be able to be P.”

As far as I can tell, Clinton is eligible to be President. He just isn’t eligible to be elected President. Here are the operable sections from the Constitution —

Amendment XXII
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Amendment XII
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

The plain language of Amendment XXII seems self-evident to me.

So, while I am not really suggesting that Clinton be considered by Kerry (though there are worse choices being mentioned), I would like to learn what I am overlooking in the Constitution if, in fact, RWC is correct and Clinton isn’t allowed to be President again. I’ve seen this question debated before, but have never read what appeared to be a definitive resolution.

Factoid

Four times in American history the candidate with fewer popular votes has been elected.

None of the four has been reelected.

Two lost. One didn’t run. George W. Bush is the other.

A sour complainer named Eldrick

Sally Jenkins has also had enough:

At what point do we say this is no slump, this is who Tiger Woods really is? What if the former Wonder Boy is just a sour complainer named Eldrick whose manners are as lousy as his play is disappointing?

We could have an endless debate about whether Woods has lost his golf swing, but he’s in definite danger of losing something else, and that’s the good opinion of his audience. The Woods who played in the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills this week was not an especially great player, nor was he a very good guy. Among the things that Woods blamed for his final round of 76, his worst final round in an Open since turning pro, and 10-over-par finish: the weather, the United States Golf Association, modern photography, the press and his former coach, Butch Harmon.

Jenkins has some choice words about caddie Steve Williams, too.

Enough already

Ron Sirak of Golf World likes “a brutally difficult test of golf for the final round of the U.S. Open…for the national championship that is as it should be.”

You sorta, kinda have the right to remain silent

From The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people do not have a constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names.

The 5-4 decision frees the government to arrest and punish people who won’t cooperate by revealing their identity.

The decision was a defeat for privacy rights advocates who argued that the government could use this power to force people who have done nothing wrong, other than catch the attention of police, to divulge information that may be used for broad data base searches.

Police, meanwhile, had argued that identification requests are a routine part of detective work, including efforts to get information about terrorists.

The justices upheld a Nevada cattle rancher’s misdemeanor conviction. He was arrested after he told a deputy that he didn’t have to reveal his name or show an ID during an encounter on a rural road in 2000.

NewMexiKen posted items on this case here, here and here.

Read the decision.

And we thought Sister Francella was tough

Also from CNN.com:

A Japanese teenager was forced by his teacher to write an apology in blood after dozing in the classroom, the school’s principal said on Monday.

The teacher later went to high school principal Hiroaki Dan and confessed what he had done, Dan told Reuters.

The teacher had apologized to the 17-year-old boy and his parents, Dan said, confirming a local media report of the incident, which happened last Thursday.

He said the boy was taken to the staff room of the school in Fukuoka City, southern Japan, after being caught asleep during a lesson. The 40-year-old male teacher handed the boy a box-cutter and paper and told him to write an apology in blood.

This link, and the one below, from Dave Barry’s Blog.

Homeland security on top of its game

From CNN.com:

A teacher’s aide who forgot to put away her marshmallows and hot chocolate at Yellowstone National Park last year was taken from her cruise ship cabin in handcuffs and hauled before a judge, accused of failing to pay the year-old fine.

Hope Clarke, 32, crying and in leg shackles, told the judge Friday she was rousted at 6:30 a.m. by federal agents after the ship returned to Miami from Mexico. She insisted that she had paid the $50 fine before she left Yellowstone, which has strict rules about food storage to prevent wildlife from eating human food.

Customs agents meet all cruise ships arriving from foreign ports and run random checks of passenger lists, and a warrant claiming Clarke had not paid the fine was found in the federal law enforcement database.

Two party system

Juanita Jean Herownself at Juanita’s, The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., sums up the difference between the parties:

Democrats will lie to you about sex, but they will look you right in the eye and say, “We’re going to raise your taxes and give it to little hungry children.” They don’t lie about taxes; they tell you up front. You can whine. They kinda expect you to.

Republicans, on the other hand, will lie about taxes. They’ll use smoke and mirrors to pilfer more money out of you, and then they’ll expect you to thank them for it. If you don’t, they call Tom DeLay and get him to announce that you’re a atheist communist heathen Hillary-lover who might be harboring terrorist in your…garage.

License. I don’t need no license. I don’t have to show you any stinking license.

From The Washington Post —

Thomas B. Griffith, President Bush’s nominee for the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law in Utah without a state law license for the past four years, according to Utah state officials.

Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had previously failed to renew his law license in Washington for three years while he was a lawyer based in the District. It was a mistake he attributed to an oversight by his law firm’s staff.

Update: Functional Ambivalent has some details.