dilbert from july 24, 2002

12 greek words you should know

here are my favorites from the list of 12 greek words you should know

1. Acme

The highest point of a structure. The peak or zenith of something. One could say that Rome reached the acme of its power on 117 AD, under the rule of Trajan.

The acme of modular, factory-built, passively safe reactor design, however, is found in South Africa. People there have been experimenting with so-called pebble-bed reactors for decades. (The Economist)

4. Anathema

Anathema is a noun and it means a formal ban, curse or excommunication. It can also refer to someone or something extremely negative, disliked or damned. Curiously enough, the original Greek meaning for this word was “something offered to the gods.”

Some thinkers argue that while collaboration may work for an online encyclopedia, it’s anathema to original works of art or scholarship, both of which require a point of view and an authorial voice. (USA Today)

6. Ethos

Translated literally from the Greek, ethos means “accustomed place.” It refers to a disposition or characteristics peculiar to a specific person, culture or movement. Synonyms include mentality, mindset and values.

Consumerism needs this infantilist ethos because it favors laxity and leisure over discipline and denial, values childish impetuosity and juvenile narcissism over adult order and enlightened self-interest, and prefers consumption-directed play to spontaneous recreation. (Los Angeles Times)

11. Plethora

You have a plethora when you go beyond what is needed or appropriate. It represents an excess or undesired abundance.

In California, for example, some neighborhoods have been blighted by the plethora of empty homes. Joe Minnis, a real estate agent for Prudential California, knows foreclosed homes in San Bernardino that have been systematically stripped, trashed and tagged by gang members. (Business Week)

sup nyc

see ya nc

how the us became what we supposedly hate most

i ain't no france hater. and i ain't no socialist hater. but most of the us could be characterized as such. my favorite article from time of the week explains why we're late to the party, broke when we get there, and the laughingstock of the entire guest list.

So yes, while we're still willing to work ourselves to death for the privilege of paying off our usurious credit cards, we can no longer look contemptuously at the land of 246 cheeses [France]. Kraft Foods has replaced American International Group in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the insurance company having been added to Paulson's nationalized portfolio. Macaroni and cheese has supplanted credit default swaps at the fulcrum of capitalism. And one more thing: the food snob French love McDonalds, which does a fantastic business there. They know a good freedom fry when they taste one.

who invented the :)?

this man, apparently.
i think i might try to do a show on him!

financial crisis

EXplained. it's really not all that complicated. and i laugh at the part that reads:

Conservative Republicans always want the government to stay out of business and avoid regulation as long as they are making lots of money. When their greed, however, gets them into a fix, they are the first to cry out for rules and laws and taxpayer money to bail out their businesses. Obviously, Republicans are socialists.

true. story.

she's not ready

But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.

the posts are getting better by the hour

double standards abound in politics

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review,create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor,then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

a sound article on the wall street meltdown

is here

i agree that all of those who are libertarians and democrats, those who favor deregulation, really think about what deregulation has done for wall street and the economy. it's been proven time and again that allowing it to happen creates networks of disaster that end up in millions lost. from enron to wall street we go!

eve ensler - drill drill drill

i've always been a fan of the vagina monologues
the creator, eve ensler, has written a poignant piece on sarah palin

after reading that, i noticed a link to a story about a rally held in alaska - the alaska women reject palin rally. not the most catchy name, and it hasn't gotten a whole lot of media coverage, but over 1400 people attended. in alaska. that is the largest rally in the state's history.

i am still incredibly pissed off that john mccain has chosen her as a running mate. it dominates my thoughts.

oh my god. hilarious:

Gee whilikers, the McCain vampire just won't die! Hit him with a hammer, and he explodes like a jellyfish into a hundred hungry pieces.

unfortunately, the rest of the article i find to be highly alarming. palin is NOT a feminist.

mccain lies and distortion

karl rove appears bitterly divided on the experience issue

netta's political thoughts of the day

so, because i'm a journalist and i work in the
media, i bristle whenever i hear a reference to the "liberal media."
my view on all of this is that the majority of the media, particularly
television news, has actually become a mouthpiece for propaganda -
propaganda that is far from liberal.

what you see on tv news is usually a 30 second soundbite that doesn't ever deliver the entire story.

i enjoyed reading this piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/opinion/09herbert.html

and i found this comment on the piece to be quite poignant, and i agree with the poster:


Not to blame the media in the calculated and cynical way the
Republicans did during their convention, but it is hard to stand up to
the lies and illusions of the Right when the media insists all
arguments are equally valid and is so afraid of losing access that it
refuses to call a spade and spade and call out the transparency of the
lies politicians (of all parties) spew in order to be elected.


You saw this after the McCain campaign abused CNN for serious
questioning of its spokesman. The next day CNN fawned over McCain's
speech saying at one point it was more substantive that Obama's. It
wasn't until the next day when more rational minds dissected the speech
did it get reported that the speech was in fact virtually devoid of any
substantive policy positions and many of the "facts" cited were
completely fabricated.

The press has to get back to the task
of impartially observing and investigating the issues of the day. This
24/7 cycle of Jerry Springer where the most obnoxious and chronic liars
come out on top is a big part of the current lack of substantive
discourse in this country. And while the media organization bear a lot
of responsibility for this dereliction of duty, they couldn't get away
with this "reality journalism" if large portions of the public didn't
eat it up.

— David Stewart, New York, NY

while
i'm not fully in line with either party these days because i'm
frustrated with democrats for not standing up for themselves and for
the people of this country, and i'm irate with republicans for allowing
things to go the way they have ... i'm even more frustrated with the
way the media has remained in a cycle that has presented the
investigative journalism of days gone by.

i would like to
encourage those reading this blog to please pay attention to the
newspapers of the world, please listen to npr and the bbc, and please
watch cspan. fox news, cnn, and even msnbc are not giving you a
balanced or truthful idea of what is really going on because that can't
be delivered in 30 seconds.

it's much cooler to pay attention.

thank you for tuning in to netta's political thoughts for the day.

:)

/np

books palin wanted banned

when sarah palin was the mayor of wasilla, she wanted the following books banned. when the librarian refused to ban them, palin tried to have the librarian fired.
the list is taken directly from the official minutes of the wasilla library board.

1. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

3. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

4. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

5. Blubber by Judy Blume

6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

7. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

8. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

9. Carrie by Stephen King

10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

11. Christine by Stephen King

12. Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

13. Cujo by Stephen King

14. Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen

15. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

16. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

17. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

18. Decameron by Boccaccio

19. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

20. Fallen Angels by Walter Myers

21. Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland

22. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

23. Forever by Judy Blume

24. Grendel by John Champlin Gardner

25. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

26. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

28. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

29. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

30. Have to Go by Robert Munsch

31. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

32. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

33. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

34. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

35. Impressions edited by Jack Booth

36. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

37. It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

38. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

39. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

40. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

41. Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

42. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

43. Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein

44. Lysistrata by Aristophanes

45. More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

46. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

47. My House by Nikki Giovanni

48. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara

49. Night Chills by Dean Koontz

50. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

51. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

52. One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

53. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

54. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

55. Ordinary People by Judith Guest

56. Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective

57. Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

58. Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

59. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

60. Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

61. Separate Peace by John Knowles

62. Silas Marner by George Eliot

63. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

64. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

65. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

66. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

67. The Bastard by John Jakes

68. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

69. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

70. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

71. The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth

72. The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

73. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

74. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

75. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

76. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder

77. The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

78. The Living Bible by William C. Bower

79. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

80. The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman

81. The Pigman by Paul Zindel

82. The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders

83. The Shining by Stephen King

84. The Witches by Roald Dahl

85. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder

86. Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

87. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

88. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

89. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster

90. Editorial Staff

91. Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween

92. Symbols by Edna Barth

i wish mccain had gotten barack'rolld like this ...

patsy stone? or mccain's wife?

i usually don't like to participate in ridiculing someone else's looks. in fact, not only do i not condone it, i usually look down upon those that snark in that manner.

i can't resist here.

who's familiar with patsy stone? from ab fab?

she's the blonde in the first 3 photos. now. who does this look like on the far right in my last photo?

can we also talk about:

a. how creepy john mccain looks manhandling palin's youngest daughter

b. how uncomfortable palin's husband looks

c. the grip that middle daughter has on trig (not the grip that pregnant eldest daughter usually has)

d. pregnant daughter's bf has had a haircut

e. mrs. mccain's lovely legs. they match her suit.

oh body language.

the host whisperer

i've been fortunate enough to have been trained by david candow once. i can only hope that the station will bring him back again. this article, in the washington post, explains why they call him "the host whisperer." he's re-trained and trained many a host and producer in the npr-sphere. and he's a great teacher and story teller himself.

i love james carville

sometimes i love him, and sometimes i hate him, because sometimes i agree with him and sometimes i vehemently disagree with him.

here, he shows exactly why he is such an important voice.