Am I the only one who saw "xanthine" and thought "Piers Anthony"?
Bad budgie:
I will not attempt to climb from my person's shoulder to the top of her head using her ear as a clawhold.
Advice to budgies everywhere:
Using the bridge of someone's eyeglasses as a perch while that someone is wearing them is an intimacy to be reserved for very close friends.
Citing Nabokov is especially ironic, considering Van Veen in Ada is a particularly repulsive Mary Sue.
I can sympathize with the fanfic impulse a little, because it seems to me that Kirk and Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker are the modern equivalent of Hercules or Theseus. Disney, Lucasfilms, and the rest take our common mythopoetic impulses, put brand names on them, then sue us when we infringe on their copyright on our dreams. I want an alternative to this, and I think it should come from the fanfic writers.
<humming>And the man in the suit has just bought a new car with the profit he made on your dreams . . .
Maybe one of you can explain this to me. On the one hand, we have authors of utter drivel who pay to have their work published. On the other, we have some very talented writers who choose to write fanfic that can92t be published.
Why would someone with taste and talent—and many fanfic writers have both—choose to plant their roses in someone else92s garden (lousy metaphor, but it92s late and I92m tired)?
Rachael: Nothing minty below the waist, not even Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap.
Vassilissa: I'm sorry I never heard that song before! (Oh, I've missed much, I'm sure.)
I just remembered my pediatrician's nurse's name: Nurse Child. I thought it was her title.
My guess is Jerusalem would be treyf. (You can't eat people, can you? No hooves, no cuds, killing them on purpose is a sin, & eating the naturally dead is taboo, not to mention just icky.)
It92s more important that some words be kept with other words than that some individual words be kept whole.
Here92s my example: As I read “The duToitification of the Western Conservative” with steadily mounting glee, I was distracted every time a line break fell between “du” and “Toit”. I would have put a nonbreaking space between the two words.
And the reaction Bush expected from the EU on steel tariffs was “they will give in, because we are America and everything we do is God92s will.” This is the man who expected the Iraqis to realize they were Wrong and knuckle under without a struggle.
The American obsession with security extends to everyone 93important94, not just American politicians. A year or two ago Pervez Musharraf landed at Midway Airport during the morning rush hour, and a lot of people where I work were late that day because the police closed off the through streets all around it.
I joined the ACLU last night. Again. I belonged before, maybe five years ago. I92m still afraid of pissing the gummint off. I blame Richard Nixon. I92m being perfectly serious: Watergate was the first political event that penetrated my consciousness, and the enemies92 list really stuck in my mind. What changed my mind this time was the fact that, as much as I would hate to suffer the fate of an official Enemy of Righteous Godliness, I know that I would be just as unfree living in John Ashcroft92s idea of Eden.
P. S.: Bruce Arthurs92s comment reminds me of something my boss told me. He92s from a village in rural India, in Maharashtra, I think. He said it92s gotten so cheap to make a phone call that nobody writes letters any more, and though it92s nice to hear people92s voices and often very handy to be able to communicate so quickly, he misses having the letters to keep.
Maybe I92m wrong (being afraid, very afraid doesn92t do much for my ability to concentrate), but I don92t think the proposed rule (which can be found in its entirety here) would apply to ordinary people who buy 37a2 stamps and stick them on ordinary envelopes. I think refers only to mailers who are eligible for a lower postage rate because they sort their mail according to ZIP code, use special machine-readable formats for addresses, etc. A detailed description of how to qualify for a discounted rate is here.
So if John Ashcroft decides that everyone who gives to the American Friends Service Committee is an enemy combatant, he92ll know where to send the black marias; but if some lone nutcase decides to send me a ricin sandwich with anthrax garnish, all they have to do is buy the stamps out of a vending machine, carefully making sure it weighs less than a pound.
Whether I92m right or wrong, write to protest.
Teresa, even if they did change the names, how could you disguise someone as distinctive as Augusta?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 13 |
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