Now that I’ve posted a good set of thoroughly depressing political posts, it’s time for something a little more frivolous: pictures from the (newly remodeled) DeYoung Museum. They’re not as good as I had hoped–no flash allowed, understandably, so they tend to be a little on the fuzzy side–but I figured a few were worth sharing here.
This is one of my favorite pieces, just gorgeous in person. Photo doesn’t do it justice, etc. » Read more..
Archive for TehipiteTom
DeYoung Museum
What Really Matters Is the Appearance of Appearances
Start with the suicides of three detainees at Guantanamo–one of whom had been cleared for transfer.
Compound that with (Assistant Deputy Secretary of State) Colleen Graffy’s comments to the BBC that the suicides were a “good P.R. move” and “a tactic to further the jihadi cause.”
It looks bad, and the administration realizes it looks bad. The problem, of course, is not that what Graffy said was completely appalling to civilized humans; the problem is that it didn’t work. She certainly wasn’t off the reservation: » Read more..
Keystone Stasi
It’s good to know the DHS is protecting us from bootleg T-shirts. (The post title is from the article; I wish I’d made it up, but I didn’t.) Hat tip: Kevin Drum.
[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]
No Fitzmas…Again
So Rove isn’t going to be indicted. Oh well. Christy at Firedoglake reminds us that this isn’t over, but it’s still disappointing…and I’m not holding my breath waiting for a Cheney indictment. I’m just glad I was properly skeptical about Jason Leopold’s Rove indictment story.
[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]
How Do you Say ‘Splash’ in French?
I’m reading Dumas’s1 The Vicomte de Bragelonne (the Three Musketeers 30 years later, with the restoration of Charles II as historical background), and I ran across this passage:
As he approached, he heard the noise of the pulleys which grated under the weight of the heavy pails; he also fancied he heard the melancholy moaning of the water which falls back again into the wells – a sad, funereal, solemn sound, which strikes the ear of the child and the poet — both dreamers – which the English call splash; Arabian poets gasgachau; and which we Frenchmen, who would be poets, can only translate by a paraphrase – the noise of water falling into water.
Huh. French has (or had, as of 1850) no word for ‘splash’.
It seems such a basic word to me, such a necessary word, that of course it strikes me as strange that the French don’t (or didn’t) have an equivalent. That’s the nature of different languages, though. The Germans may well think it odd that we have no words meaning Treppenwitz or Schadenfreude; Spanish speakers may consider us barbaric for failing to distinguish picante from caliente, or chile from pimienta.
‘Splash’ appears to have its origins in onomatopoeia, which is of course a particularly rich source of linguistic differences. (Consider animal sounds, for example: French turkeys say glouglou, and their roosters say cocorico.) In French, onomatopoeia is less ingrained in the language than it is in English–it’s used more in comics than anywhere else–although apparently the word ‘cliché has onomatopoeic origins.
As for the ostensibly Arabic ‘gasgachau’, that’s either a bad transliteration or an invention of Dumas’s: a Google search brings up only the same passage (in English and French) from Vicomte de Bragelonne.
1Yeah, it looks weird. There has already been an extremely lengthy and ultimately inconclusive discussion about this sort of thing, and trust me–you don’t want to go there.
Election-Day Voice Mail for Mayor Newsom
“Hi, this is the pre-recorded voice of Tom Hilton, and I’m returning a call from the pre-recorded voice of Mayor Newsom. This is regarding, I guess, the pre-recorded voice of Mayor Newsom was concerned about how the pre-recorded voice of Tom Hilton planned to vote in the State Assembly race. So, the pre-recorded voice of Tom Hilton is calling back, but, um, I guess the pre-recorded voice of Mayor Newsom isn’t in right now. So, if the pre-recorded voice of Mayor Newsom could call back, let’s see, this evening the pre-recorded voice of Tom Hilton will be out, but, if the pre-recorded voice of Mayor Newsom could call back tomorrow evening at, I guess you already have the number but just in case it’s area code 415-[REDACTED], the pre-recorded voice of Tom Hilton should be available and, um, happy to discuss this. Thanks and, um, bye.”
1And Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer and a whole bunch of other politicians from whom I have recently received robo-calls.
When There’s No Plan B
Common sense dictates that when emergency contraception is unavailable, more people get abortions.
The author of the piece is a 42-year-old mother of two who (once) forgot to use her diaphragm. When she tried to get Plan B the next day, she was told her doctor wouldn’t prescribe it… » Read more..
Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_1339
Uploaded by acme on 11 Aug ’05, 7.44pm PDT. Use subject to Creative Commons license.
Thanks to the movies, an EKG screen is an image of anxiety. It calls to mind catastrophic possibilities: flatline, code blue, crash cart, the whole thing. Stat. This appears to be a fairly healthy person, though, at least where his or her heart is concerned. There’s no clue whose EKG this is (family? friend? random patient?) or why they’re there (cancer? broken bone? routine checkup?). The photographer’s other photos don’t really clarify; some (wrist with name bracelet) appear to personalize the context, while others (medical waste sign) appear to be just interesting images found in a hospital. The mulitple ambiguities are what drew me to this image.
Big Love and the Law
Reading about that Republican congressional candidate with the bigamy problem (hat tip: blogenfreude) got me wondering about Big Love. The Henricksons appear to believe that they could go to jail for what they’re doing…but my understanding has always been that you’re only committing bigamy if you legally marry more than one spouse. The Henricksons are all religiously married, but only one of the marriages is legal. So I was wondering: is this actually a felony?
In Utah, the answer is yes:
A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person. [emphasis added]
And in case it’s unclear how broad that is, a recent Utah Supreme Court decision upholding the statute (against a freedom-of-religion challenge) upheld the interpretation of ‘purports to marry’ as including purely religious marriage ceremonies with no legal confirmation of the marriage.
I did a quick check in a few other states and as far as I can tell, none of them have comparable language; the bigamy statute in California, for example, bigamy is just defined as ‘marrying’ more than one person. I’m not certain, but Utah may well be unique in this respect.
The reason is obvious; it’s the same reason a prohibition on polygamous marriage is in the state constitution:
No inhabitant of this State shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship; but polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.
I don’t have any great point to make about any of this. I just thought it was interesting.
[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]
Sunday Sierrablogging
West Kennedy Lake, Monarch Divide, Kings Canyon National Park
[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]
