End the Poll Tax
My friend Stefan Hagemann has created a GoFundMe project, End the Poll Tax. His goal — and why not? — is to raise $50,000 to pay fines and fees owed by Florida ex-felons.
Orange Crate Art
“What’s the Post Office Good For?”
From The New York Times, “What’s the Post Office Good For? Everything,” an illustrated report by Julia Rothman and Shaina Feinberg.
Happy birthday, Orange Crate Art
Surly teen, or studious young adult? Both? You decide.
Idiot, traveler, chicken
Alexander Vindman characterizes Donald Trump*: a useful idiot, a fellow traveler, and free chicken.
Anne Fadiman on singular they
“For more than six decades, I’ve accepted without thinking that when we say that someone went to the store, we don’t have to specify whether that someone was old or young, rich or poor, fat or thin, tall or short, but we do have to specify whether the someone was a ‘he’ or a ‘she.’ Now I’m starting to think that’s a little weird.”
Virginia Tufte (1918–2020)
Her 2006 book Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style is a glorious exposition of the possibilities of the sentence.
Your Postal Service
A 1949 educational film.
Shut up and carry on
From The Chronicle of Higher Education : “A tenured faculty member at Juniata College, in Pennsylvania, is facing censure after writing a comment on Facebook critical of his institution’s reopening plans in light of the pandemic.”
Today’s Saturday Stumper
“Calzone's conic kin.”
An EXchange name sighting hearing
GEdney!
Briefcase madeleine
A movie briefcase and 1960s schooldays.
Another time and place
The World Trade Center and environs, on a 2008 subway map.
Up the road a ways
The New York Times reports on life at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: “What the scientists had not taken into account was that some students would continue partying after they received a positive test result.”
“What?”
“Giving you a wide berth, son!” I shouted.
“What’s he doing?!”
Zippy ignores three rocks.
Human?
“Sorry, you did not reveal yourself to be human. Goodbye.”
In Indiana
“When you need wigs and novelties, and you’re in Indiana, you can hang it up, buddy!” Tom Waits.
“The scale of betrayal”
On Trump*’s COVID lies: "The scale of betrayal is almost beyond political analysis": Mara Gay of The New York Times.
#TrumpKnew
From the Lincoln Project.
A reminder
TRUMP = DEATH.
An essay topic
What blame should be assigned to administrators and students for the rising number of COVID-19 cases on campus, and why? Do administrators and students share equally in the blame? Or does one group deserve a greater share?
Zweig’s world
In the age of the coronavirus, the title of Stefan Zweig’s memoir acquires new significance.
Images in the new Blogger
How to tinker and get things right.
Biddle = Weegee
From the movies: a photographer who looks a lot like Weegee.
Twelve movies
The Lonedale Operator and eleven more.
23C and 23D
Safe to say that the intended audience for this cartoon includes me.
Free Jazz Against Paludan
Drowning out a far-right politician.
Nancy old and new
Old Nancy is back. New Nancy continues in meta style.
Labor Day
A welder wearing Rabin gloves.
An M-W Word of the Day: heyday
I’ve been meaning to write about the word heyday for months now. Too late: Merriam-Webster has done the work for me.