http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/ en Copyright 2008 Thu, 15 May 2008 06:00:02 -0400 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.36 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss One wonderful thing about message boards is you get to trash people for their grammar, syntax, spelling and word choice. You can get really mad about it. You can refuse to respect someone who doesn't know or care if he means "their" or "there" or "they're." In real life you can do this too, of course, but it's less acceptable. (Besides, unless they provide closed-captioning, it's hard to tell if they misspell the words they're using.) And if you remain silent nobody knows that you know an error just occurred. In real life there is rarely a dictionary handy and rarely another smug word snark there to catch it. In this way I have avoided ever having to confront illiteracy in someone I respect. Especially someone whose fluency with English I respect. Until now. In a speech on April 29, Barack Obama called the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments "divisive and http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/across_the_great_divide.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/across_the_great_divide.html Thu, 15 May 2008 06:00:02 -0400 Nats fans are already aware of the buzz about all those empty seats behind home plate. The Post's Paul Farhi, among others, wrote about it, noting that the seats in the "Presidential" section cost between $300 and $400. And any Nats fan who has watched a televised game can attest that the expanse of empty red seats directly behind home plate looks beyond pathetic. It's an insult to those of us who love baseball, to Washingtonians who want to support this new team, to fans who show up for games with bins of homemade cookies and proceed to consume massive quantities of beer and cheer those muppet presidents at the top of her lungs. (Okay, so I am talking about Rachel here -- I don't know anyone else who bakes cookies to bring to a baseball game. This is why Rachel is great.) You get the point. This is crazy. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/nats_win_and_their_fans_too.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/nats_win_and_their_fans_too.html Wed, 14 May 2008 06:00:02 -0400 NPR had a great segment on the Biomimicry Institute on Saturday. It's a non-profit that hooks up biologists with corporations that are trying to build stuff nature has already made, or almost made. The example Janine Benyus (founder of the institute) gave in the interview was a battery company that wanted to make a battery both renewable and less toxic (especially for devices implanted within the body). Biomimicry, she said, would set the company up with a biologist who has spent his whole life studying electric eels. As I listened, I thought: This kind of thinking has been around for more than a century in the form of superheroes. A man is out in a lightning storm with a cheetah, and the cheetah is mid-pounce when the same lighting bolt hits both man and cheetah, creating ...Cheetah Man. He will now have some of the properties of a Cheetah. In http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/intelligent_design.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/intelligent_design.html Tue, 13 May 2008 06:00:07 -0400 Sorry, Caitlin -- I'm a bloop apologist. In fact I wish I could bloop more.. Even without getting embarrassingly personal here, I would bloop fully 15 percent of my brain, if it were possible. If there were a way, for example, not to remember the choreography to the number "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile," from my middle school's production of "Annie," I would buy my brain a present. The plots of the television shows I used to watch after school would go, too, along with their theme songs. (It's a little wild and a little strange when you make your home out on the range. Start your horse and come along, but you can't hitch a ride if you can't hold on. Singing yippie ky-yi-yay...) So would all the ways I used to mispronounce words when I had only ever seen them written (chah-ose for chaos, ann-ox-shus for http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/googling_bloops.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/googling_bloops.html Fri, 09 May 2008 10:00:01 -0400 The buzz on koalas is that they're drunk on eucalyptus leaves. The rumor is so rampant that there's a concerted campaign to knock it down. The truth is that they're just incredibly sleepy -- they sleep about 20 hours a day. All their energy goes into digesting the leaves. But listen to what one of the local scientists told me: Because koalas are basically leaf-digesting machines, they have very small brains that take up only about one-third of their cranial cavity. They're literally airheads. [Most of my field work on Australian fauna has been accomplished at the zoo. Really I don't know why people bother going into the boondocks, risking life and limb, enduring all manner of discomfort, to study creatures that are accessible in one convenient location in Sydney.] When you drive in Australia you have to be on the look-out for the roos, which apparently are about http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/are_koalas_drunk.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/are_koalas_drunk.html Fri, 09 May 2008 04:06:01 -0400 On the Metro yesterday, I sat near a couple of girls -- college students, I think, or possibly high school seniors -- who were talking about a class they were taking together together and how hard it was. It was a psychology course, and they were discussing the infamous ill-fated study wherein a group of college students simulated the roles of prisoners and prison guards. It is a famous study. You know. THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT, conducted by PHILIP ZIMBARDO in 1971. That's in caps not because I have particularly strong feelings about the subject, but because I'm still revved from Googling "college prison experiment" and finally confirming a few little details about the study that I once knew by heart. Such as: a) the name of it; b) where and when it happened; and c) who was in charge of it. The caps are there because I spent an http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/the_bloopy_brain_theory.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/the_bloopy_brain_theory.html Thu, 08 May 2008 10:00:06 -0400 Rachel -- Love the snake story. The lil' fella looks pretty cute to me, but then I was raised in a tree-huggin' household that served as a rescue shelter for just about every member of the animal kingdom at one point or another -- SNAKE included. The SNAKE in question was named Larry, whom my mother rescued from a panicked woman who had found him in her laundry. She then put Larry in a pillowcase, which she brought to the local nature store, where my mother was waiting in line to pay for birdseed. It was too cold outside to release Larry -- he'd missed his hibernation window lounging in that lady's laundry basket -- so my mother concluded (via logic typical of the vaguely deranged nature lover) that he should hang out in our house with us until springtime. Larry was a young garter snake with a great sense http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/snake_in_the_tub.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/snake_in_the_tub.html Wed, 07 May 2008 11:00:01 -0400 Last Sunday I was walking in a garden and was tempted by a snake. It was awesome. I had gone out to talk to my plants in soothing tones, which I do because I have no children or pets. The strawberry had been a wild idea -- $14 and no fruit until next year, but he's adorable. It is important for him not to feel insecure, just because he costs as much as four and a half tomatoes and will not be particularly useful for awhile. It is important that this plant learn of unconditional love. I was explaining to him he could produce fruit whenever it felt right, when I noticed SNAKE. That is exactly what happened in my brain. SNAKE. And then I was eight feet away. The best part was that the same thing happened to him. We had been hanging out, just fine, and both saw http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/snake_in_the_grass.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/snake_in_the_grass.html Wed, 07 May 2008 06:00:04 -0400 Buddy was a racehorse in Oklahoma before we found him in Maryland. He wasn't a big winner; he never actually won at all. As a result, he fast became one of thousands of horses in the United States "retired" from racing each year. When a Triple Crown winner is retired, he is put out to stud. He is well cared for and enjoys a cushy life siring high-priced foals. For most racehorses, however, retirement means being sold cheap at auction, or euthanized, or sent to a slaughterhouse. Others are released in barren pastures, victims of often-fatal neglect. Buddy, a sweet-natured slowpoke, was a lucky one. He was rescued after years spent abandoned in a field, where he deteriorated into an emaciated, parasite-ridden shadow of a horse, his hooves so ruined he could barely stand. My family took him in, and Buddy slowly grew to trust us. He was a walking http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/horses_races_and_racehorses.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/horses_races_and_racehorses.html Tue, 06 May 2008 06:00:01 -0400 Yes, Caitlin, car neglect is a very powerful thing. Intentionally or not, mechanics make me feel bad for 1) not knowing what is wrong; 2) having caused the problem, probably by overloading the floor with soda cans and ignoring potential problems and generally thinking an idiosyncratic car is charming; and 3) having a liberal arts degree. A car is an extremely dangerous, heavy thing that I clearly do not deserve. Besides treating mine like a recycling bin, I have basically given my car opportunity after opportunity to kill me. One time I kept jumping the battery until it smoked. Another time, preparing to jump the battery, I stood downhill from my car when it was in neutral, and held out my arms as if to stop it. I am so durn proud of my two car skills (jump battery, change tire) and I basically trust my car not to kill http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/buy_me_a_drink_or_a_new_transm.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/buy_me_a_drink_or_a_new_transm.html Mon, 05 May 2008 11:00:03 -0400 [Editor's note: Joel is a away for a couple weeks -- working on a top-secret project with Paul Hogan -- and will be posting only intermittently. In his absence, he's asked a few Friends of Achenblog to pinch-write for him. This week's featured FOA are Caitlin Gibson and Rachel Manteuffel.] I dropped off my car recently for a routine oil change. When I arrived at work the next morning, there was already a voicemail waiting from the mechanic: Please call me back as soon as possible, he said. No further explanation. This is never a good thing. A car mechanic does not ask for an immediate call back for a happy reason. He does not want to compliment the zebra-print fuzzy dice hanging from your rearview mirror or chat about why you have so many old half-chewed dog nylabones on the floor of your backseat. I called back and it http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/my_prides_in_the_shop_along_wi.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/my_prides_in_the_shop_along_wi.html Mon, 05 May 2008 09:00:05 -0400 It's a long way to the other side of the planet. The airline announced that there were heavy headwinds and we'd have to make an unscheduled stop in Honolulu to refuel. I was all in favor of that, since I never once believed it was possible to make it all the way to Australia on a single tank of gas. My feeling is, when crossing the Pacific in a tube of metal 7 miles above the open ocean you shouldn't throw caution to the wind. Visually it's not much of a trip for mos tof the time -- it's always dark west of Los Angeles, I've discovered. Hawaii is dark. The International Date Line was completely invisible, though I squinted to see it. Eventually there was light, and all kinds of boiling clouds, and you could almost hear a choir of angels over the jetliner whine. For some reason http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/off_to_exile_island.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/off_to_exile_island.html Sun, 04 May 2008 16:48:52 -0400 You may recall that my story on What Does A President Do quoted a Harvard professor saying that Jimmy Carter got entangled in such minutia as approving the use of the White House tennis court: "Roger Porter, who teaches about the American presidency at Harvard, says that Carter also got enmeshed in the parking assignments at the Department of Interior, as well as the crucial issue of federal cotton-dust standards." Ralph Nader called me on that. True fact. He left a voice message on my machine at work: "Hey Joel. Ralph Nader. Nice article in the Post. Very few people pay attention to what a president does every day." Then: "I hope you didn't mean that the crucial issue of cotton dust standards is trivial like parking assignments. That dealt with byssinonis that affected you know, in the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of textile workers." [Nader worked on http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/nader_on_cotton_dust_standards.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/05/nader_on_cotton_dust_standards.html Fri, 02 May 2008 08:07:37 -0400 "He threw him under a bus." Where did this phrase come from? Suddenly it is the required phrase for describing the act of publically breaking with, or criticizing, or blaming, a former ally/friend/colleague/lover. The Obama-Wright relationship has incited a massive outbreak of the phrase, which we can now officially declare to be overused. That doesn't mean that those who used it in recent days were guilty of cliche-mongering -- because this one congealed into cliche status with astonishing speed. (Searching for uses I see that David Knowles of the blog Political Machine says "under the bus" is number one on his list of the five most egregiously overused phrase of the campaign season.) (And Tony Dokoupil of Newsweek says the phrase caught fire after Obama's famous speech on race, when it was widely noted that Obama didn't you-know-what to Wright.) Just to take a few examples of outbreaks in http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/04/threw_him_under_a_bus.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/04/threw_him_under_a_bus.html Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:39:20 -0400 So it was very late, at Reuters's party, pretty much the last thing happening at the Hilton Saturday night, and I was talking to a fellow named Jason from Congress Daily, and it suddenly dawned on us both that the White House Correspondents Dinner wasn't like a Fellini film after all. No: More like a 1970s disaster movie. You know how, in a 1970s disaster movie, there's always the character-setting portion in the first 30 or 40 minutes in which we meet the various over-the-hill B-list actors? Perhaps there'll be a big scene in which everyone's in black tie, feeling full of themselves -- unaware that in a few short minutes a calamity will strike and the entire ballroom will be upside down. That's how it felt in the big room at the Hilton: Like you ought to grab hold of something for when the place flipped. "It would http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/04/the_poseiden_adventure_dinner.html?nav=rss_blog http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2008/04/the_poseiden_adventure_dinner.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:53:51 -0400