The Rat | |
Friday, August 30, 2002
( 2:06 PM ) The Rat BECAUSE SIZE MATTERS. Find out, among other things, why the spire of the Chrysler Building was constructed in secret. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:06 PM ( 2:05 PM ) The Rat EVE: Mr. Brookhiser disapproves of blogs. (Do as he says, not as he does.) # Posted by The Rat @ 2:05 PM Thursday, August 29, 2002 ( 1:25 PM ) The Rat "USUALLY I GET MAD AT PEOPLE WHOSE MINDS ARE IN THE GUTTER. THEY GET IN THE WAY OF MY PERISCOPE." Go to InPassing.org for other things overheard in Berkeley, Calif. This link courtesy of the same guy who sent me the next: # Posted by The Rat @ 1:25 PM ( 1:19 PM ) The Rat GOOGLEWHACK.COM! These are great, but "fetishized armadillo"?? Courtesy of a friend who says he's played it for years (!). # Posted by The Rat @ 1:19 PM ( 12:20 PM ) The Rat CHINA BELIEVED TO HAVE DETAINED MISSING AIDS ACTIVIST. File under "dog bites man." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:20 PM ( 12:13 PM ) The Rat SO I SAW Merci pour le chocolat last night. Don't make the same mistake. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:13 PM Wednesday, August 28, 2002 ( 11:05 AM ) The Rat TWO MORE OF 9/11'S MISSING, FOUND. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:05 AM ( 11:04 AM ) The Rat THE HONORED SOCIETY AUTHOR A FRAUD. New York Post on Simon & Schuster's rescinsion of their publishing agreement with Michael Pellegrino, who had claimed to be the grandson of Carlo Gambino, real-life model for The Godfather: "Little did the publisher know that the real Michael Gambino is actually Gambino's great-grandson—and a 16-year-old schoolboy living with his parents in New York." # Posted by The Rat @ 11:04 AM Tuesday, August 27, 2002 ( 7:24 PM ) The Rat CLICK HERE to take the Cool Person Test. # Posted by The Rat @ 7:24 PM Monday, August 26, 2002 ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat When two beings fall in love with one another and begin to suspect that they were made for each other, it is time to have the courage to break it off; for by going on they have everything to lose and nothing to gain. —Either/Or # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM Friday, August 23, 2002 ( 2:27 PM ) The Rat ADMIT IT, you've always wanted to fold pornographic origami. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:27 PM ( 1:02 PM ) The Rat GOOD CALL, SHAMED. And as 9/11/02 nears we should also be remembering things like this. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:02 PM ( 11:45 AM ) The Rat AREN'T WE ALL. "'We're still looking for either a naked man with huge eyes or an emu,' the spokesman added." # Posted by The Rat @ 11:45 AM ( 11:45 AM ) The Rat THE HISTORY OF the turban. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:45 AM ( 11:45 AM ) The Rat "How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly." —The Sun Also Rises # Posted by The Rat @ 11:45 AM Thursday, August 22, 2002 ( 3:11 PM ) The Rat GETTING SOME TAIL. Hee! A friend in California sends the following: This is a singles ad which appeared in a local paper: SBF (single, black, female) seeks male companionship. Age and ethnicity unimportant. I'm a young, svelte, good-looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting/camping/fishing trips. I love cozy winter nights spent lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. Rub me the right way and watch me respond. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Kiss me and I'm yours. Call 555-2525 and ask for Daisy. The phone number was that of the Humane Society, and Daisy was an eight-week-old black Labrador retriever. They received 643 calls in two days. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:11 PM ( 1:00 PM ) The Rat LADIES: A REASON TO REGRET not having gone on the stage. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:00 PM ( 12:50 PM ) The Rat ARE ASYMMETRICAL PEOPLE MORE PRONE TO JEALOUSY? Compare with this study, which suggests that women prefer symmetrical men for affairs. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:50 PM ( 12:28 PM ) The Rat ON THIS DAY: ...in 1485, Richard III, the last English king to die in battle, was killed at Bosworth Field. ...in 1567, the "Council of Blood" was established by the Duke of Alba. ...the English Civil War began in 1642. ...in 1775, George III declared the American colonies in a state of open rebellion. ...in 1776, Washington asked the Continental Congress for permission to burn New York City, to stop it from being used to quarter troops arriving via the British fleet. ...the Haitian revolution began in 1791. ...gold was discovered in Australia in 1851. ...Debussy was born in 1862. ...the Geneva Convention was signed by 12 nations, and the International Red Cross was founded, in 1864. ...liquid soap was patented in 1865. ...Dorothy Parker was born in 1893. ...in 1902, Leni Riefenstahl was born. ...René Wellek was born in 1903. ...Japan annexed Korea in 1910. ...the Louvre announced the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911. ...in 1939, Carl Yastrzemski was born. ...Cindy Williams (Shirley) was born in 1947. ...in 1989, Huey P. Newton was killed. ...the first complete ring around Neptune was discovered, also in 1989. August 22 is also the birthday of Deng Xiaoping (1904), Mats Wilander (1964), Howie Dorough (1973), and a Squid (1978). # Posted by The Rat @ 12:28 PM Wednesday, August 21, 2002 ( 2:44 PM ) The Rat WAIT, HERE'S SOMETHING THAT'S NOT ABOUT DEATH. It's about taxes: The last of New York's sales-tax-free shopping amnesties is in effect below Houston St. through end-of-business tomorrow. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:44 PM ( 2:43 PM ) The Rat AND TO KEEP TODAY'S POSTS 100% DEATH-THEMED: Back in high school, after reading this account by Shaw, I started to think cremation might not be such a bad idea. But some years later I saw a news special about these people, who will shoot your ashes out in fireworks over the Pacific. And now there's a firm in Chicago offering to turn your ashes into diamonds. It reminds me of Walker Percy's commentary on all the different objects people had converted into coffee tables. Of course, there's always the Monty Python method. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:43 PM ( 2:03 PM ) The Rat A MORE APPETIZING FORM OF ASSISTED SUICIDE. And could we expect any less from somebody named "Rolf Eden"? # Posted by The Rat @ 2:03 PM ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat RUBY RIDGE happened ten years ago today. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM ( 11:07 AM ) The Rat ATTN EVE, and all my other sicko friends who expressed an interest: this is the restaurant that serves deep-fat-fried Cadbury creme eggs. It's near both of my last two apartments. We'll go when you visit—you eat, I'll stand by with the paramedics. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:07 AM Tuesday, August 20, 2002 ( 12:26 PM ) The Rat THIS PHOTOGRAPH could be a metaphor for my job. Probably for yours too. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:26 PM ( 12:21 PM ) The Rat DISCO KILLS! # Posted by The Rat @ 12:21 PM ( 12:21 PM ) The Rat BE THANKFUL YOU LIVE IN A COUNTRY where the teachers have more sense than their unions. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:21 PM ( 12:15 PM ) The Rat NATURE'S ABOVE ART IN THIS RESPECT. Who could have made this up? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:15 PM ( 12:14 PM ) The Rat HEADLINE OF THE DAY, winner. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:14 PM ( 12:13 PM ) The Rat HEADLINE OF THE DAY, runner-up. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:13 PM ( 12:07 PM ) The Rat AND CLICK HERE for today's entry for "Things You Wouldn't Have Thought People Had To Be Told Not To Do." # Posted by The Rat @ 12:07 PM Monday, August 19, 2002 ( 3:09 PM ) The Rat FIRST DO NO WHAT? Wesley J. Smith on new developments in assisted suicide in Oregon. Lots of interesting stuff, but the most surprising I found was this, which comes toward the end of a description of the assisted suicide of Kate Cheney, a terminal cancer patient believed to have been suffering from dementia when, at the urging of family, she requested a lethal prescription: Cheney did not take the poison pills right away. Her assisted suicide took place only after she was sent to a nursing home for a week. Tellingly, she took the pills on the very day of her return home. No doctor was present. Nor was her mental status assessed at that time. That is because under the Oregon law, once the prescription is written, death doctors need have no more to do with the suicidal patient. At the very least, doesn't this make "assisted suicide" a misnomer? Cheney's death sounds pretty self-serve to me, except in the sense that it may have been helped along by the daughter who "encouraged" her to ask about it—twice. What really seems to be happening here is that the law is permitting certain people (or their relatives) to waive any further expectation that medical professionals will be looking out for even their most basic rights: the right, for instance, to change their minds. That can't be a good idea, seeing as an estimated 90 percent of patients who ask for help committing suicide eventually change their minds. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:09 PM ( 12:29 PM ) The Rat NEW BIN LADEN TAPES. Interesting piece, though I confess I am a bit puzzled when the author writes: Among the most frightening scenes in the collection of tapes are those of testing of a poison gas on three dogs. The disturbing images show the dying moments of the defenseless, enclosed animals. Maybe it's easy to forget, but this is al Qaeda we're talking about. They knocked down the World Trade Center last year, killing 3,000 people. Did this reporter really think they were going to be scrupulous about how they treated dogs? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:29 PM ( 12:04 PM ) The Rat UNUSUALLY HEATED RHETORIC from the Dems. Now if only they would get this excited about killing, oh, I don't know, terrorists? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:04 PM ( 12:01 PM ) The Rat NEW YORK TIMES to begin publishing announcements of gay couples' ceremonies. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:01 PM ( 11:58 AM ) The Rat NEW INFORMATION in the Daniel Pearl case. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:58 AM ( 10:55 AM ) The Rat I LOVE how the Post went to the trouble of running this entire photograph and caption. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:55 AM ( 10:51 AM ) The Rat Dear Doktor Professor [Heidegger]... I should like to know what you mean by the expression 'the fall into the quotidian.' When did this fall occur? Where were we standing when it happened? —Herzog # Posted by The Rat @ 10:51 AM Sunday, August 18, 2002 ( 4:48 PM ) The Rat Artificial methods are like putting a premium on vice. They make men and women reckless… Nature is relentless and will have full revenge for any such violation of her laws. Moral results can only be produced by moral restraints. All other restraints defeat the very purpose for which they are intended. If artificial methods become the order of the day, nothing but moral degradation can be the result. A society that has already become enervated through a variety of causes will become still further enervated by the adoption of artificial methods… As it is, man has sufficiently degraded woman for his lust, and artificial methods, no matter how well-meaning the advocates may be, will still further degrade her. —Mahatma Gandhi on contraception # Posted by The Rat @ 4:48 PM ( 4:47 PM ) The Rat WOW. I knew Margaret Sanger was nuts, but I hadn't realized she was quite this nuts. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:47 PM Saturday, August 17, 2002 ( 7:11 PM ) The Rat It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive. —Charles Péguy # Posted by The Rat @ 7:11 PM ( 7:02 PM ) The Rat "SMUG AND SANCTIMONIOUS"? "Simplistic and glib"? Who would ever have expected such a thing from Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon? I admit they're both top-notch actors. But this Telegraph story is so typical of this couple's moral and political grandstanding I had to put it up. Asked why she won't be taking her play to the Middle East, for instance, Sarandon explains: "I do work for Unicef but I don't know if I want to go to the Middle East. It's so violent and I've got a family." Gee, Susan, it's sure lucky not a single member of our armed forces ever has to leave a family behind when they go to icky places like the Middle East. # Posted by The Rat @ 7:02 PM Friday, August 16, 2002 ( 11:20 AM ) The Rat IT'S STUFF LIKE THIS that makes me regret having left advertising. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:20 AM Thursday, August 15, 2002 ( 4:10 PM ) The Rat "Shouting is irrational," she cried despairingly. "You cannot think straight if you're shouting! Nor can I!" "Wrong! It's only when I'm shouting that I begin to think straight! It's my rationality that makes me shout! Shouting is how a Jew thinks things through!" —Sabbath's Theater # Posted by The Rat @ 4:10 PM ( 2:31 PM ) The Rat GO HERE to learn about cheese. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:31 PM ( 2:21 PM ) The Rat TRIPPY photo. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:21 PM ( 2:16 PM ) The Rat JOIN a fungus-of-the-month club! # Posted by The Rat @ 2:16 PM ( 2:13 PM ) The Rat OF COURSE HONG KONG WILL STILL BE FREE AFTER IT'S HANDED BACK TO CHINA. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:13 PM ( 2:11 PM ) The Rat INTERESTING LITTLE STORY from the Weekly Standard about German pacifists. Link via Shamed. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:11 PM Wednesday, August 14, 2002 ( 1:57 PM ) The Rat NOW WHERE DID I PARK THAT THING? # Posted by The Rat @ 1:57 PM ( 12:21 PM ) The Rat BOY, COULD I HUM A FEW BARS OF THIS. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:21 PM ( 12:14 PM ) The Rat E-BULLYING on the rise in Britain. Call me a trad, but whatever happened to a good old-fashioned swirly? # Posted by The Rat @ 12:14 PM ( 12:01 PM ) The Rat AND IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I pray the Lord not to turn me into a Frisbee. Instead, I'm demanding a Viking burial like this guy. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:01 PM ( 11:53 AM ) The Rat "You are unkind, mademoiselle. Should one be penalized for having a passable exterior by being forbidden to admire beauty? Isn't it instead culpable to be ugly? I have always ascribed it to a kind of carelessness." —The Confessions of Felix Krull # Posted by The Rat @ 11:53 AM Tuesday, August 13, 2002 ( 3:13 PM ) The Rat NOT SINCE STRINDBERG has anyone fit as many painful truths about men and women into this short a space. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:13 PM ( 2:57 PM ) The Rat IN HONOR OF the yummy Turkish food my best friend treated me to last night, here's a site that instructs you in useful phrases (e.g., "Do not search for a calf under an ox") in Turkish. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:57 PM ( 2:56 PM ) The Rat OUCH. That's gotta hurt. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:56 PM ( 2:47 PM ) The Rat AHEM. No comment. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:47 PM ( 2:41 PM ) The Rat INSPIRED. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:41 PM ( 2:40 PM ) The Rat RODENTIAL DISCRIMINATION rears its ugly head. If there were any justice, my people would have starred on these. # Posted by The Rat @ 2:40 PM ( 2:33 PM ) The Rat "They will take the flower of your innocence, Jarvis, and they will bruise it." "Will it hurt?" —The Liar # Posted by The Rat @ 2:33 PM Monday, August 12, 2002 ( 11:01 AM ) The Rat This trivial incident nonetheless affected Volodin unpleasantly, for he had lately begun to wish that everything in life would be smooth and nice and that doves would flutter through the air. —Mikhail Zoshchenko, "The Lilacs are Blooming" # Posted by The Rat @ 11:01 AM ( 11:00 AM ) The Rat HEE! # Posted by The Rat @ 11:00 AM Friday, August 09, 2002 ( 3:06 PM ) The Rat THE CUCKOO THEN, ON EVERY TREE / MOCKS MARRIED MEN; FOR THUS SINGS HE... Italy crowns its first "Cuckold King" since 1962, when the competition was banned. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:06 PM ( 1:33 PM ) The Rat A FRENCH GUY convincingly dressed like Obélix. But where are the menhirs? # Posted by The Rat @ 1:33 PM ( 11:57 AM ) The Rat Dershowitz. You're a strange man, Claus. von Bülow. You have no idea. —Reversal of Fortune # Posted by The Rat @ 11:57 AM Thursday, August 08, 2002 ( 5:43 PM ) The Rat CLICK HERE for a really cool photo. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:43 PM ( 5:26 PM ) The Rat WOMAN DIES BY SATI in Madhya Pradesh, India. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:26 PM ( 5:10 PM ) The Rat KAFKA SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT SOMEONE CONDEMNED TO SPEND HER WHOLE LIFE APARTMENT-HUNTING IN MANHATTAN. Or maybe he did, and I'm in it. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:10 PM ( 1:46 PM ) The Rat Man. I'd like to take you out in a monster-free city. Woman. I'd like that. —discussion between man and woman as they look out of the skyscraper window at a giant flying monster on a nest in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) # Posted by The Rat @ 1:46 PM ( 12:47 PM ) The Rat GOTTA LOVE this headline. Edinburgh wasn't nearly this interesting when I was there in '95. But things went from bad to worse. They were beset by more breast problems—first their silicone implants hardened in the chilly Scottish climate and then a fetishist stole a pair of their conical fake breasts... # Posted by The Rat @ 12:47 PM Wednesday, August 07, 2002 ( 3:40 PM ) The Rat MY PEOPLE just don't get no respect. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:40 PM ( 10:55 AM ) The Rat 'I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; 'and the moral of that is—"Be what you would seem to be"—or if you'd like it put more simply—"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."' —Alice in Wonderland # Posted by The Rat @ 10:55 AM Tuesday, August 06, 2002 ( 12:53 PM ) The Rat GET YOUR S/M-THEMED TEDDY BEARS here. Eve and I saw one of these at the Portobello market. Unrelated (so far as I know): George Orwell used to live on that street. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:53 PM ( 12:33 PM ) The Rat I may be a liar, a cheat, a drunk, and a tramp, but I've got principles. —Joanna Cassidy, All-American Murder (1992) # Posted by The Rat @ 12:33 PM ( 12:26 PM ) The Rat SINCE YOU WERE WONDERING: A Google search for "thomas mann underpants" turns up, among other things, a site containing the phrase: "one cannot always tell whether the lack of underpants is intentional or due to lack of funds" # Posted by The Rat @ 12:26 PM ( 12:19 PM ) The Rat THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR SPARE CAMELS. "The Grand Vizier of Persia [...] in order not to part with his collection of 117,000 volumes when travelling, had them carried by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order." (Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading) # Posted by The Rat @ 12:19 PM Monday, August 05, 2002 ( 12:22 PM ) The Rat A LOVELY VACATION. As evinced by the fact that only now, on returning to real life, do I feel like I need an airsick bag... When you're next in London, don't miss the Imperial War Museum, definitely the high point of this trip. Thanks to the internet, even from the privacy of your 9-to-5 quiet desperation you can still take a virtual tour of the Cabinet War Rooms (not in the same place, of course—the Imperial War Museum is on the site of what used to be Bedlam; the Cabinet War Rooms are on the site of what used to be the Cabinet War Rooms) here. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:22 PM ( 12:20 PM ) The Rat KEW GARDENS, complete with obligatory melting Dali clock, giant-alien-gumdrop topiaries, and carnivorous-plant room, was also very nice. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:20 PM ( 12:19 PM ) The Rat HERE IS the perfect job for Eve, who consumed not one but two suckaos at Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar (on the second floor of Harrods) on Saturday. Of course, she saw me eat a whole trout just a few days before, so maybe we're even. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:19 PM ( 12:17 PM ) The Rat And with these words her backside was no longer a backside, but grief itself, splendidly formed grief dancing around the room... —"Symposium," Milan Kundera # Posted by The Rat @ 12:17 PM |