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Sunday, July 14, 2002
( 9:50 AM ) The Rat Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. —Emo Phillips # Posted by The Rat @ 9:50 AM ( 9:44 AM ) The Rat HAPPY CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEY DAY! Ah, Bastille Day... what better time to revisit this column? # Posted by The Rat @ 9:44 AM Saturday, July 13, 2002 ( 1:26 AM ) The Rat There are five reasons for drinking: the visit of a friend, present thirst, future thirst, the goodness of the wine, or any other reason. —attributed to Père Sirmond, 16th century # Posted by The Rat @ 1:26 AM Thursday, July 11, 2002 ( 11:52 AM ) The Rat CANDICE BERGEN ADMITS DAN QUAYLE WAS RIGHT. Gee, it's a good thing she didn't wait ten years to go public. (Thanks to Shamed for the link.) For Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's eponymous 1993 Atlantic piece, go here. For Jonah Goldberg's trenchant analysis of why Hollywood has its head up its ass, go here. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:52 AM ( 11:50 AM ) The Rat JOHN FRANKENHEIMER died on Saturday. He was best-known as the director of The Manchurian Candidate, the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful film I have ever seen in my life. A great loss to Hollywood, and the rest of us. Mr. Frankenheimer is survived by his wife of 41 years, Evans Frankenheimer; two daughters; and a grandson. R.I.P. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:50 AM ( 11:22 AM ) The Rat FOUND last night at East Village Books (a fabulous little place on St. Marks off Ave. A; open till 11 on weeknights, and midnight Friday/Saturday): a book on the history of drinking containing facsimile of an old ad headlined, "I was the mainstay of the Public Library until I discovered Smirnoff." As a former copywriter, I'd date it at about early '70s, maybe late '60s—it has that sort of Ogilvy glow. Of course, the writer's mistake was to assume that starting reading has to entail stopping drinking. I became hard-core at both more or less simultaneously. Also last night at EVB, ditzy guy with equally ditzy chick yanked a gorgeous anthology of Yiddish stories off the shelf exactly one second before I could reach it. I had the typical crazed-female-at-shoe-sale reaction, naturally (which I also have at shoe sales). Time to go retake that likelihood-of-committing-murder test. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:22 AM ( 11:20 AM ) The Rat OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE is finally over. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:20 AM ( 11:18 AM ) The Rat It's not true I had nothing on. I had the radio on. —Marilyn Monroe # Posted by The Rat @ 11:18 AM Wednesday, July 10, 2002 ( 6:30 PM ) The Rat EVE: Yeah, it's Pascal. And P.S. Fix your permalinks! # Posted by The Rat @ 6:30 PM ( 8:46 AM ) The Rat One dances for the pleasure of the movement, and it is not necessary that one should wish to go to bed with one's partner; but it is a pleasant exercise only if to do so would not be disgusting. —W. Somerset Maugham # Posted by The Rat @ 8:46 AM Tuesday, July 09, 2002 ( 9:46 PM ) The Rat PERUSE THE WINNING ENTRIES IN THE GOLDEN JUBILEE POETRY CONTEST. Scroll down for Alexander Pirrie's "Boogie in the Garden." I would have thought "trumpet" cried out to be rhymed with "strumpet"—but then, I'm not English. # Posted by The Rat @ 9:46 PM ( 7:21 PM ) The Rat DRUG SLANG NOT UP TO PAR? Go here. # Posted by The Rat @ 7:21 PM ( 3:47 PM ) The Rat I'M THE EVIL QUEEN! Take the Disney villains test. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:47 PM ( 3:33 PM ) The Rat MY LIKELIHOOD OF COMMITTING MURDER IS 35 PERCENT, according to this test. Seems a conservative estimate to me. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:33 PM ( 10:42 AM ) The Rat EVE IS RIGHT about Mathewes-Greene, of course, but she also still hasn't read this story—as everyone should, pro-choice or pro-life. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:42 AM ( 10:40 AM ) The Rat TODAY THROUGH THURSDAY, goods and services purchased below Houston St. will again be exempt from the sales tax. Does not apply to purchases over $500, gasoline, or (no shit!) tobacco. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:40 AM ( 10:34 AM ) The Rat THE CITY POLICE OF WINNIPEG clearly failed to heed the warnings of this Monty Python sketch. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:34 AM ( 10:24 AM ) The Rat Madame. The old man has sent her dozens—no, hundreds—of letters. Toyama. If he sent out all his letters to different women, one of them might have been successful. —The Damask Drum # Posted by The Rat @ 10:24 AM Monday, July 08, 2002 ( 2:54 PM ) The Rat WIN YOUR WIFE'S WEIGHT IN BEER and other Finnish pastimes. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:54 PM ( 11:46 AM ) The Rat [The Baltimore Sun's] Susan Reimer believes that "sexual liberation... [was not] a bad idea," yet sees the need for abstinence education, since "sex education is not enough... providing information on contraceptives does not increase the likelihood that [teens] will use them." Unwilling to ask anyone to "renounce pleasure," she suggests that girls be told instead to wait and grow up because older men are "better lovers" (an idea that falls under the category of "not completely thought through"). —Frederica Mathewes-Green, Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion # Posted by The Rat @ 11:46 AM ( 11:43 AM ) The Rat THOUGH I AM, AS FRIENDS KNOW, A SWORN ENEMY OF HUMAN HAPPINESS, even I had to admit that the wedding, this Saturday in Seattle, of my friend Michael to his fiancée Monica was quite beautiful. So many couples have fled their church, which is being renovated, that the next wedding to be held there isn't until February. The priest explained that each time yet another of the church's splendors was taken away—from the swathing of the interior in white plastic ("Great acoustics!" as optimistic choir members pointed out; it really felt like attending a wedding inside a wedding dress) to the closing of the center aisle and removal of the organ—he would ask again if they wouldn't prefer to go elsewhere; but they held firm: this was their church, this was where they would marry. They also spent the wedding night at their new digs rather than at a hotel (though there is to be a honeymoon). In a world of ever-more-elaborate weddings, and a bridal market so lucrative there is now a magazine published specifically for second- and third-time brides, you have to admire a couple able to view the wedding as not a vacation from a marriage but the beginning of one. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:43 AM ( 11:23 AM ) The Rat Me. Shamed just asked me whether I, or [Mutual Friend X], hates the world more. Chris. I think I'd have to go with him. I can spend an entire evening with you without necessarily wanting to commit suicide at the end of it. —overheard last week # Posted by The Rat @ 11:23 AM Wednesday, July 03, 2002 ( 1:17 PM ) The Rat SO I TOOK the personality disorder test Zorak linked to, and evidently I'm totally nuts. Like, seriously. And for further Kermit-the-Frog news flashes, watch this space. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:17 PM ( 12:59 PM ) The Rat PICTURES of my home town! (Yes, it really looks like that.) Somebody remind me why I'm living in a prime East-Coast military target when I could be living in a prime West-Coast military target? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:59 PM ( 12:18 PM ) The Rat AFTER THE FIREWORKS TOMORROW (and here's hoping our technicians do a better job of it than Hong Kong's did), be sure and catch Rick Brookhiser's documentary Rediscovering George Washington, to air on PBS at 9:30 PM. I saw a preview at the Historical Society a couple months back, but since I'm too lazy to explain why it rocked will just quote the official description: "[Rediscovering George Washington] features a fresh approach to American biographical documentary—getting the camera off old prints, out of the offices of talking heads, and away from stock footage of marching feet. The show offers modern analogs for the events and dilemmas it describes. How should a president deal with the Whiskey Rebellion? A seminar of colonels at the Army War College discuss the problem. Did Washington throw a stone across the Rappahannock? Five local high school pitchers go to the spot and try. Whenever experts are used, they talk on the spot. Richard Brookhiser, the writer and host, is not an off-camera narrator, but a passionate and involved presence, in the tradition of David Attenborough (Life on Earth) or Kenneth Clarke (Civilization)." Rick is the man. So tune in. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:18 PM ( 12:08 PM ) The Rat I BET JOHN HOLLANDER GOT BEATEN UP A LOT AS A KID. Quoting Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse: Finally, a recent offshoot of the clerihew, invented by Anthony Hecht and first published by him in collaboration with this author: the double-dactyl is a pair of quatrains of two accentual dactylic feet, with the following conditions placed on it: Starting with nonsense words ("Higgledy-piggledy"), Then comes a name (Making line number two); Somewhere along in the Terminal quatrain, a Didaktyliaios Word, and we're through. Or, in a perfect instance, Higgledy-piggledy Schoolteacher Hollanders Mutter and grumble and Cavil and curse, Hunting long words for the Antepenultimate Line of this light-weight but Intricate verse. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:08 PM ( 11:52 AM ) The Rat MMMM, vodka. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:52 AM ( 11:43 AM ) The Rat I wish you read books (you know those things that look like bricks but come open on one side). —F. Scott Fitzgerald in a letter to Zelda # Posted by The Rat @ 11:43 AM Tuesday, July 02, 2002 ( 5:05 PM ) The Rat We were fashioned to live in Paradise, and Paradise was destined to serve us. Our destiny has been altered; that this has also happened with the destiny of Paradise is not stated. —Kafka # Posted by The Rat @ 5:05 PM ( 11:35 AM ) The Rat HEATHER MAC DONALD, intrepid reporter for City Journal, will be the keynote speaker at the Fabiani Society TONIGHT, 6 to 8 at the Princeton Club, 15 West 43rd St. (between Fifth and Sixth). For her terrific article on the Cincinnati riots, go here. Fabiani sucks, as I've said before in this space, but Mac Donald is one of the best reporters working today, so even if the price is being surrounded by a bunch of political hangers-on, drop on by. (And remember to leave the tattoos at home—this is the Princeton Club.) There's lots of free cheese, always dear to a Rat's heart. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:35 AM ( 11:31 AM ) The Rat HATSOFMEAT.COM is back! # Posted by The Rat @ 11:31 AM ( 11:29 AM ) The Rat RODENTIA IN THE NEWS. Vampire rats have been attacking livestock in Argentina. Hey, wasn't me. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:29 AM Monday, July 01, 2002 ( 5:36 PM ) The Rat IF THEY WON'T LET YOU VERIFY YOUR GENDER THE TRADITIONAL WAY at work, or if you were just traumatized by the Gay Pride Parade, go here. (No. 23: "Does Canada suck or what? A) Yes. B) Yeah.") I scored, as it were, as a man, "86% confidence": "How do we know? Well, deep down, your gender affects everything about you, from your favorite number to your views on Canada. Many men who took the test think and act just like you, as you can see from the clusters above." I assume this is the effect of growing up with two older brothers (or else of the testosterone shots?). Back in '96 a (male) friend told me he was convinced I was a man trapped in a woman's body. Another (male) friend's comment, on hearing the story: "I don't understand, if you were a man trapped in a woman's body, why you would ever want to get out!?" # Posted by The Rat @ 5:36 PM ( 9:58 AM ) The Rat Your actions are my dreams... —Leontes, The Winter's Tale III.ii # Posted by The Rat @ 9:58 AM ( 9:51 AM ) The Rat SLOW MONDAY AT THE OFFICE? Take a virtual tour of MoMA Queens. # Posted by The Rat @ 9:51 AM ( 9:51 AM ) The Rat REALLY SLOW MONDAY AT THE OFFICE? Why not re-read this, or this? # Posted by The Rat @ 9:51 AM Saturday, June 29, 2002 ( 1:37 PM ) The Rat "Why don't you want to admit that there is freedom of thought among women?" "Because, brother, according to what I have observed, among women it is only the freaks who think freely." —Fathers and Children # Posted by The Rat @ 1:37 PM Friday, June 28, 2002 ( 6:58 PM ) The Rat A POST TO ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE THAT BLOGADDER WILL NEVER MARRY ME. Thoughts on his remarks re the new Rutgers study of young men’s attitudes toward marriage: To begin with, yes, the median age for men is as low as 27. (It’s 25 for women—which is why I already know this though Blogadder and I were born in the same year.) We’re only used to a higher age because people who do stuff like (as he notes) pursue advanced degrees, do tend to marry later. However. I’m surprised he tries to argue that the permissiveness of cohabitation has nothing to do with men’s reluctance to marry. Is one's desire to marry then completely divorced (sorry) from the rewards or risks that go with it? Omnia vincit amor may be a nice thought (I have my doubts), but that doesn't make it true. Necessary disclaimer: I’m not by any means pretending that everyone used to live up to the virgin-bride, blood-on-the-honeymoon-sheets ideal. Obviously there was plenty of free love going on decades and centuries before it was culturally ratified (some have speculated that the mobility occasioned esp. by WWII probably had a lot more to do with the liberalizing of sexual behavior than even the Pill-powered Sixties did). Still, there is a big difference between a society in which people tend to restrict sex to people they would marry, and a society in which, for a sizable proportion of the young, it's not that strange to shag a guy whose name you never quite did catch over the music. To take an extreme (but not uncommon) case: shotgun weddings. The rise in the number of unwed mothers has far more to do with the decline in shotgun weddings than with any actual increase in the amount of sex being had. This isn't just the fault of the men btw—I still remember a friend, unintentionally pregnant at 20, explaining earnestly that it wasn't that she didn't love the father; she just didn't love him enough to marry him. Given that, by at least one estimate, children born out of wedlock live with their fathers for an average of six months, I think we can call this a problem. And to pull out another whipping-boy: cohabitation. Even leaving aside that couples who cohabit are likelier, if they do marry, to subsequently divorce, cohabitation is a losing bet, especially for women—a fact that unfortunately few of us have wised up to. But it’s simple math: a man’s prime marriageable years last considerably longer than a woman’s. When Diana and Brad shack up for the four years between 25 and 29 and then discover that things “didn’t work out,” Brad hasn’t lost as much time as Diana has. Is it “romantic” to expect her to make the sacrifice/gamble anyway? If romance definitionally includes women getting screwed over—and for a lot of guys, it does (something like 40 percent of people now say they wouldn’t marry someone unless the person agreed to cohabit first)—well, then I suppose that’s romance. And then there’s oxytocin, the hormone women release immediately after childbirth, while breastfeeding, and during sexual climax, and which is believed to foster attachment. Some believe there’s a hormone men release during sex with exactly the opposite effect: i.e., that triggers commitmentphobic panic. Whether the tales about the latter are true (I unfortunately don’t even remember the name of the damn thing), the fair amount of work done with oxytocin seems to argue that for women, sex and love are much more tightly bound than they are for men. This work then won the prestitious "Duh!" award, since anyone with half a brain could have observed the reality empirically (even if you prefer to word it as “Women are annoying and clingy”). (There is, or was, a saying among prostitutes to the effect of "Men don't pay you to have sex with them. They pay you to leave.") This naturally puts us at an added disadvantage in a culture of courtship-for-sex rather than courtship-for-marriage. And finally, frankly, one reason people used to marry earlier was—at least in part—because they were horny. The people who spend their time looking at stuff like this have found that married people have more sex than any other group except cohabiting singles. And they sure as hell have more sex than non-cohabiting singles do. Given that, and if your choice is between all the sex you can eat with no real encumbrances (except for the whole dealing-with-the-tears-and-recriminations-and-finding-a-new-apartment thing) and all the sex you can eat with the demands of a lifelong promise—only an idiot, a sentimentalist, or someone with express orders from God or his subsidiaries would go for door no. 2. I no more want to denigrate romance than Blogadder does. Hell, Maggie writes more passionately about it in the last chapter of this book than an entire bathhouseful of sexual revolutionists could ever dream of doing. Nor am I suggesting that every chick who doesn't marry by 30 will give birth to monstrosities (for some agonizing passages on male-female conflicts of interests, read this), or that any man who doesn't pony up a ring for some woman, any woman, is a freeloading asshole. My point's just that it's naïve to assume romance happens in a vacuum. Like everything else, it flourishes better under some conditions than others. The widespread availability of free milk (or rentable cows) may have little or no effect on Ted's willingness to buy a cow—I know him, he's a good guy—but for a lot of men today, it does ...which was the point of the study. # Posted by The Rat @ 6:58 PM ( 2:34 PM ) The Rat UNLIKE OTHER PEOPLE I COULD NAME, Allen St. John has some non-stupid observations about women's sports. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:34 PM ( 1:55 PM ) The Rat THERE GOES MY LAST REASON TO CONVERT. Effective July 1, smoking is no longer permitted at the Vatican. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:55 PM ( 1:16 PM ) The Rat POET-BAITING. I seem to recall Mr. McGonagall being well represented in Ross and Kathryn Petras's anthology of very bad poetry. Either way, "poet-baiting" definitely needs to be revived, at least on our college campuses. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:16 PM ( 11:38 AM ) The Rat JUST MY LUCK. MoMA, one of the three things that make living in Manhattan bearable (the other two are bookstores), is relocating to Queens while the 53rd St. site undergoes a three-year renovation. If you now have to cross water to see things like this, this, and this, console yourself by dropping in tomorrow and Sunday (June 29-30), when admission will be free. Hours: 10 AM to 10 PM. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:38 AM ( 11:25 AM ) The Rat PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE HUNCHBACK BEHIND THE CURTAIN. A theater company has retitled its production "The Bellringer of Notre Dame" so as not to offend those suffering from scoliosis or spina bifida. While it's true that, as the producer points out, "hunchback" was not in Hugo's original title (Notre-Dame de Paris), I somehow doubt anyone would bother to be so scrupulous in a less PC climate. They claim not to have meddled with the content, but, well, day ain't over yet. Meanwhile, why not enter Eve's contest? # Posted by The Rat @ 11:25 AM ( 10:35 AM ) The Rat THERE'S ONLY ONE "QUEER ISSUE" OF THE VILLAGE VOICE? Haven't had time to read yet, but that is a fun photo on the cover. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:35 AM ( 10:22 AM ) The Rat In the fight between you and the world back the world. —Kafka # Posted by The Rat @ 10:22 AM Thursday, June 27, 2002 ( 5:39 PM ) The Rat THE NAKED AND THE NUDE. I wonder if Rachel Shteir anywhere uses the word bawdy to distinguish between "mere" smut and the kind of thing she seems to be getting at with this forthcoming book. (Link from a friend in Chicago.) I would rant a bit about how our supposedly sexed-up culture has forgotten that intercourse is not intrinsically banal, but a) well, DUH! and b) look, I don't like Wendy Shalit either. Eric Partridge wrote an amusing study of Shakespeare's bawdy—entitled (wait for it) Shakespeare's Bawdy—which, 54 years later, is still in print. The slang-dictionary genre lives on too, and there is fun to be had in books like this one (let's put it this way, if "going below 14th St."* meant everywhere what it does in some circles, my daily commute would be a hell of a lot more fun than it is), but ultimately Partridge's treatment is more interesting—as is his subject. Likewise I have rattling around somewhere at least one book of dirty jokes from the 1940s that pretty much already contains all the good ones, despite the tireless efforts of Blanche Knott et al. in the decades since; and most of the limericks in this humongous anthology (the largest single-volume collection extant, I think) date from World War II. The unoriginality of the species would seem to be older than just about everything but its concupiscence. *According to Dalzell, "to perform oral sex on a prostitute" (p. 204). # Posted by The Rat @ 5:39 PM ( 3:44 PM ) The Rat They discussed at great length whether marriage was a prejudice or a crime... —Fathers and Children # Posted by The Rat @ 3:44 PM Friday, June 21, 2002 ( 1:05 PM ) The Rat SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK. I'm going to be away until at least next Thursday, by which time this year's Public Theater offering will have kicked off (starts June 25). They're doing Twelfth Night, which—though my favorite of the comedies—is also tied with the Midsummer Night's Dream for the title of Shakespearean Play Most Susceptible To Fucked-Up Postmodern Productions. Tickets are free, but for lack of a better phrase, caveat emptor. "Hey—when I see five guys in togas stabbing a guy in broad daylight, I shoot the bastards." "That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, you moron!" —Naked Gun # Posted by The Rat @ 1:05 PM ( 12:35 PM ) The Rat WHEN IN ROME... And bang—so to speak—go my plans to live in Italy. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:35 PM ( 12:35 PM ) The Rat DORK ALERT, CTD. I'm the only one, aren't I, who thinks "A giraffe with an artificial leg" sounds like a bad parody of Wallace Stevens. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:35 PM ( 11:00 AM ) The Rat SOLACE FOR ALL YOU SOCCER FANS. Attributed to a London reporter on the eve of the England-West Germany World Cup final of 1966: "If, on the morrow, the Germans defeat us at our national sport, be not dismayed. For twice in this century, we've defeated them at theirs." # Posted by The Rat @ 11:00 AM Thursday, June 20, 2002 ( 4:59 PM ) The Rat THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL. There was clearly a conspiracy afoot to keep yours truly from learning about this beauty contest. Warning: the pic of the "hairless rat" made even me feel queasy. The cuddling "masked rats," OTOH, I would proudly show off to the neighbors. Okay, maybe not. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:59 PM Wednesday, June 19, 2002 ( 1:23 PM ) The Rat WHO KNEW there were so many ways to live? # Posted by The Rat @ 1:23 PM ( 1:22 PM ) The Rat "NEVER FORGET THAT BOLSHEVIKS ARE CROCODILES." And other sound advice from Winston Churchill. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:22 PM ( 12:26 PM ) The Rat SNARKY ALTERNATIVE READINGS of well-known works, courtesy (again) of Gary Saul Morson. Bleak House: When in doubt, sue. The Brothers Karamazov: Christianity is for losers. Candide: I still believe that people are good at heart. Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead): Boys will be boys. Girls will be boys. "The Diary of a Madman" (Gogol): A nose is a nose is a nose. Gargantua and Pantagruel: Moderation in all things. The Inferno: [...] 2. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. "The Kreutzer Sonata": All you need is love. Lysistrata: A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Nineteen Eighty-Four: 1. Thanks for the memories. [...] "Ode to Melancholy" (Keats): Take Ecstasy. The Odyssey: Honesty is the best policy. The Possessed: Workers of the world, unite! The Secret Agent (Conrad): Think globally, bomb locally. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:26 PM ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat THE MOTHER SHIP BECKONS. Eve, we'd better go here last or we'll never see anything else in London. Then again, I already saw The Mousetrap when I was there in '91, so what else could there be to miss? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM Tuesday, June 18, 2002 ( 3:51 PM ) The Rat ON THE FIRST DATE? Am I the only one who thinks this photo deserves a better caption? # Posted by The Rat @ 3:51 PM ( 3:34 PM ) The Rat HUMOR FOR LITERATURE DORKS. Gary Saul Morson's And Quiet Flows the Vodka is funnier than I'd expected. Much of the humor is old-fashioned (think Groucho Marx). But the comments on academia ring painfully true—plus, he leans right. Includes an excerpt from "Dostoevsky's novel Torture." From the glossary: Bosch, Hieronymus. In Russia: a realist. In Siberia: a sentimentalist. Commissar and the Pea, The. A Soviet novel, winner of a 1938 Stalin Prize. A variant on the folktale of "The Princess and the Pea," it tells the story of a young NKVD agent distraught by the torture of a single innocent man. [...] Copernicus (Kopernik). A Polish astronomer who hypothesized that Poland revolves around the sun, rather than the reverse. death of the author. A theory of literature advanced by Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Joseph Stalin. happy ending, Russian. A hero learns the reason for his agony. Nietzsche. 1. A predecessor of Derrida. 2. Emerson with ulcers. rational choice theory. 1. A doctrine denying the existence of human folly. 2. Its own refutation. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:34 PM ( 2:48 PM ) The Rat FINALLY, a dénouement in the continuing California thong crisis. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:48 PM ( 2:34 PM ) The Rat DRAT. Screw London. Tushnet and I should have booked for Australia. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:34 PM Monday, June 17, 2002 ( 1:35 PM ) The Rat TOUGHLOVE. Turkish schoolchildren can now get a police escort to guard them from their parents when they get bad grades. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:35 PM ( 11:00 AM ) The Rat THE QUINTESSENTIAL "DEAR ETHICIST" LETTER, from this week's NYTM: When the cafeteria at work offers seafood chowder, I dip the ladle as far down as it will go and grab spoonfuls of bottom-dwelling shrimp and fish, minimizing my take of broth. My goal is to get the best food for my money. Am I being unfair to the soup lovers who get to the cafeteria after me? Will Bohlen, Washington If Mr. Bohlen's life really involves no moral choices harder than this, I could use some of his advice. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:00 AM |
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