January 2009
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I couldn't bear Rick Warren. I have no tolerance for the unctuosity of preachers, and Rick busted all standing records for unctuosity. I thought he was entirely too Christian — if there is one event that should be absolutely ecumenical, it's an inauguration. Also embarrassing was Elizabeth Alexander's poem — poetry by the yard, absolutely prosy, undistinguished, predictable, and…
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I was a night game, and I was playing left field, The batter hit a long fly my way. I saw it clearly as it came off the bat, studied the trajectory, and knew that it was nothing more than a loud foul – only to hear the ball plop down not more than ten feet behind me. The huge…
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A. "Tattoos Get You Sex." A forthright, undisguised sentiment. Here we have an enormous advertising establishment working indefatigibly to imply that the car, the beer, the perfume, the toothpaste, the sneakers will get you laid. But do they ever come out and say so directly? No. It's all implication and suggestion (except for the commercials for Viagra/Cialis…
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Grandma is 96+ years old. She's an accomplished, strong-willed, tough old lady who has survived just about everything life can throw at a person: polio in childhood, over two dozen major surgeries, diabetes, and then two times in the last decade, cancer. Now she's very close to the end. She has been in a nursing home for four…
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When you consider an adult whom you've known from infancy, you're tempted to think that their traits at maturity were evident from birth. You saw it in them. Shyness or assertiveness or enterprise or doggedness or volubility or curiosity — all there right at the starting gate. "It stands to reason that she would have…
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The origin of "steerage," a word used to describe the part of the vessel allotted to the poorest of passengers is not fully established. Some say that "steerage" originally referred to the section nearest the rudder, but for this theory I can find no confirmation. As far as I know, steerage passengers were as likely…