Posted by
upendra on
28 February 2010, 4:08 pm
I’ve been reading a lot lately (more on that later), so I’ve been frequenting the Prince George’s County Memorial Library in Hyattsville, Md. I fondly remember going to the C. Burr Artz Public Library in Frederick with my parents and brother as a kid at least monthly. I’m not sure that I read even half of what I checked out, but I really enjoyed the outing more than anything: the sad librarians who had given up on their dreams and settled as bookpushers, the homeless who would crowd the seating areas and sleep under the day’s News-Post, the discirculated books that sold for 10 cents–I loved it all.
Anyway I wanted a way to keep track of what I’m reading, and there’s this handy “Activate Reading History” button on my online account page. I went to click it, and the following ominous dialog box came up:
Thanks, Patriot Act. I guess I could just do it anyway, but be sure not to read any books that are terrorism how-tos or about subverting the government. But that’s not much of a compromise.
I decided to do some Internet research. Here’s a 2005 congressional report (PDF) on the efficacy of the Patriot Act’s library records provision. (As of the time of its writing, there hadn’t been a single use of it, but it was finally used at least once after the report came out.) Also back in 2005, the House bipartisanly voted to curb this specific provision, but it was never enacted into law. Fast forward to the present: On Friday a democrat-controlled Congress voted to extend the library provision (and other civil liberties-squeezing surveillance measures) until 2011, and Obama signed it into law yesterday. Dude, c’mon.
Posted by
upendra on
23 February 2010, 7:22 pm
The Washington Post reported today that Tony Kornheiser was suspended from the air by ESPN for making unflattering comments about his colleague Hannah Storm’s wardrobe. (I consider myself unqualified to make such a sartorial criticism.) Lately I have gotten into the habit of watching him and Michael Wilbon on PTI each evening, so I find the story amusing. More interesting than his comments is his apparent history of lashing out against any negative comments directed at him.
In the hopes of scoring my own personal reprimand from Kornheiser, I present the following diatribe. Tony Kornheiser is an ancient, bald, orange, sweater vest-wearing oaf with a countenance suitable only for the medium of radio. He isn’t worthy of trimming Dan Le Betard’s pubescent goatee and moustache, let alone sharing a studio with real sports journalists.
Your move, Tony.
Posted by
upendra on
15 February 2010, 1:35 pm
If nothing else I am known as a man with umpteen pet peeves. One of them is CAPTCHA. (It’s an acronym–I won’t provide the full expansion here for fear of barfing on my keyboard out of its sheer inanity.) I guess it’s great that it reduces comment spam and mass bot purchasing on Ticketmaster, but, damn, it’s annoying.
I’m not sure if Blogger uses CAPTCHA, but its verification words are consistently amusing. Getting a smirk-worthy word is its one redeeming quality. (Unrelated: I don’t get why there’s a wheelchair icon next to the entry box.)
Henceforth, I will boycott any site that uses CAPTCHA. I do this for the same reason that I refuse to show my receipt to the friendly septuagenarians at my local Walmart upon exit. I don’t appreciate the assumption that I have nefarious intentions, e.g., spamming, theft, until I prove otherwise. It allows me to both protest and be lazy. Win-win!
Posted by
upendra on
12 February 2010, 10:27 am
My roommates and I hosted a party on Saturday night. The attendance was zero. Being the irrepressible scamps that we are, we partied by ourselves and took pictures anyway. Here’s a poorly Photoshopped one of me regaling me with a rather ribald anecdote that cannot be repeated here due to my intractable sense of public decency.
In the past week I’ve left the house three times: I went to the Maryland-UNC basketball game on Sunday, saw the National Gallery’s From Impressionism to Modernism exhibit on Tuesday, and helped my roommates build a hardly anthropomorphized snowman in the backyard yesterday. Needless to say, I’m getting a little nutty from all my indoors time (and might be developing rickets.)
Time to return to the outside world…
Posted by
upendra on
6 February 2010, 9:13 am
From last month’s Washington Post:
“Metro Transit Police say they have a new unit working to deter terrorists from targeting the transit system.”
Deter is from the Latin de (from) + terrere (to frighten), which is also the origin of terrorist.
They used two words in a row that share a common derivation of a Latin root. How embarrassing! It reminds me of the time I wrote, “The Civil Rights Movement moved a nation,” in a history essay in fourth grade. Classic mistake, Post.
Posted by
upendra on
4 February 2010, 3:45 pm
Eunoia is doubly interesting–first, as a curiosity in being the shortest English language word to contain all five vowels, and second, as a figure of speech. From the Greek for “well mind,” it refers to the concept of benevolent goodwill. I read today’s op-ed in the Times about Microsoft, and it made me think that Bill Gates is eunoic.
This is a trait I sometimes have trouble grasping, not because I’m less magnanimous than average, but because I’m deeply cynical. So when I do something nice for you, it’s because I’m chock full of eunoia. When you do something nice for me, I’m thinking, what’s your angle? (Just kidding.)
I really need to read Aristotle’s Rhetoric at some point…
Posted by
upendra on
31 January 2010, 9:23 pm
Starting tomorrow, Citibank will charge me a $7.50/month service fee to keep my money if I don’t maintain a $1,500 average balance on my checking account. (I imagine that the other national banks will follow suit soon.) I plan on closing my account and switching to my free, local credit union. But in case I don’t do it before I get assessed the fee, please use my $7.50 to refit your ATMs to remove the overt Klan references:
"That's Mr. KKK to you."
Posted by
upendra on
31 January 2010, 7:07 pm
Tai Shan is being deported to China on February 4. Rather than getting misty-eyed about his impending departure, I say, good riddance. That’s right–I’m anti-panda.
Get to steppin', Butterstick.
The Supreme Court recently affirmed personal freedom of speech rights for corporations. I’d like to think that if there actually was a prosopopoetic corporation, he would sound like the stiff at FedEx who participated in the Washington Post’s Live Online discussion from last Friday. He deferred almost every question to animal experts at The National Zoo, who were not actually part of the chat. After a while people must have realized that a discussion with the zoo’s shipping vendor was just stupid, so they started asking silly questions:
Washington, D.C.: Will Tai Shan be given a tour of the cockpit during the flight? Where will you store the panda poop produced during the flight?
Dave Lange: The pandas will remain in their custom-made enclosures during the flight. The animal care experts will have everything they need to make the animals comfortable during the flight
[...]
Springfield, USA: Will the Tai Shan shipment receive a FedEx tracking number, and if so can it be tracked via the tracking website?
Dave Lange: Tai Shan and Mei Lan will be traveling on a International Air Waybill but not tracked in the traditional FedEx manner.
Posted by
upendra on
30 January 2010, 1:58 pm
Okay, I’m sure Deadspin already has a post about this with hundreds of (single word) comments, but this post-game interview is amazing.
