Monthly Archives: September 2004

Praying to scorpions

Posted on September 29, 2004 by acb

“Martin Kozloff”:http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/ is a Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington; amongst other things, he teaches a course in “Classroom management for the mildly handicapped.”:http://www.uncwil.edu/people/kozloffm/CoursesTaught.html How would he teach, I wonder, a student who got up … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in War | 3 Comments

Crime and error

Posted on September 29, 2004 by acb

Somone — Tony Howard, I think — wrote the other day that he had never understood Talleyrand’s saying that something was “worse than a crime: it was a mistake.” I think the difference is this. A crime is something for … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | 1 Comment

Deux doigts

Posted on September 28, 2004 by acb

{e’}lev{e’}s {a`} “la presse(greedy bastards)”:http://dictionary.oed.com/subscribe/individuals-rw.html de l’universit{e’} d’Oxford, “se trouvent ici.”:http://atilf.atilf.fr/academie9.htm A fine companion site to “the German-English dictionary”:http://www.leo.org/dict/osidebar.html that lives in my sidebar. Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | Comments Off on Deux doigts

A whole other question

Posted on September 28, 2004 by acb

Steve Bell’s cartoon on Tuesday showed Tony Blair singing a version of “my Way” which rose to the final line “I gave Bush Myyyyyy ass.” This raised an important question of principle. Why not “arse?”. Tony Blair is a British … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 1 Comment

The benefits of faith

Posted on September 27, 2004 by acb

It is a favourite trope of Dawkins-type atheists to claim that faith is unjustified belief, and thus by definition a bad thing, which could not possibly have arisen by natural selection, except as a sort of metastasis of trust in … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in God | 3 Comments

A work of genius

Posted on September 26, 2004 by acb

Last night I finally watched Aki Kaurismäki’s “Leningrad Cowboys go America,”:imdb:Leningrad+Cowboys for which I had paid $40, with shipping on Ebay. You can’t get it on DVD at all, and the video is out of print. Never was $40 better … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Travel notes | 1 Comment

A work of imagination

Posted on September 26, 2004 by acb

“This link(via Boingboing)”:http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/2/9/6/12962/12962-h/12962-h.htm is a complete, short, Project Gutenberg reprint of a booklet of half a dozen Victorian hand shadow postures. You see the hand in the foregrounds, and the animal in the background. That’s it. You don’t see the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | Comments Off on A work of imagination

Ancient prophet

Posted on September 25, 2004 by acb

“I‘m sure there are plenty of great young songwriters working out there now and yes, I really hate them”. From a rather wonderful “talk”:http://www.rosebudus.com/wainwright/LiteraryFes.html by Loudon Wainwright. Jim White went to interview him once for the _Independent,_ in Leeds, or … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on Ancient prophet

A note on policy

Posted on September 25, 2004 by acb

Boring abusive comments will be disemvowelled. Persistent offenders may be banned. Continue reading →

Posted in Blather | Comments Off on A note on policy

If you have time

Posted on September 23, 2004 by acb

Prepare to waste it “here.”:http://www.oxforddnb.com/browse/alpha/ It looks as if the new DNB database has been left open for a little while. I recently wrote “a wormseye”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/wormseyeview/story/0,,1298303,00.html about the absurd pricing of the OED. It turns out that the new DNB … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Literature | 2 Comments