Aha

So there is in fact something that Bobby Jindal wants the feds to do...

When not to normalize

If you're a translator, you've heard it a thousand times: idioms, proverbs, and sayings in the source language should be rendered into normal, equivalent in meaning, phrases in the target language. It's a particular instance of a larger rule:what's normal in the source should be normal in the target. This is a good rule, one that should be followed unless there's a compelling reason not to.

Here's an example of that.

In an article I used recently in class, the author (a blogger commenting on that Mult Lichnosti New Year's cartoon of Putin and Medvedev performing a song-and-dance in the traditional Russian chastushki (частушки) style) says:

Российские политики ведут себя на дипломатическом паркете как свиньи в фафоровых магазинах, а потом удивляются, почему к ним отношение как к диким гопникам. А я удивляюсь, почему удивляются: отношение-то впоне адекватное.

A fairly literal translation of that would read:

Russia's politicians behave themselves on the diplomatic parquet like pigs in china shops, and then wonder why people's attitude toward them is as if they were out-of-control hoodlums. And I wonder why they wonder: that attitude is completely appropriate.

Most of my students, by a large margin, translated that as "bulls in china shops" (or "in a china shop"). It's certainly tempting. But it's a temptation you should resist. Why?

The actual Russian counterpart to "bull in a china shop" is слон в посудной лавке (slon v posudnoj lavke) - an elephant in a china shop.This author deliberately distorted the saying to make the comparison more unflattering.

You should stick with "pigs" here (or maybe even "swine").

If it's normal in the source it should be normal in the target - and, conversely, if it's not normal in the source, it shouldn't be normal in the target, either.

Happy Birthday, Sir Pterry!

Yes, today is Terry Pratchett's birthday! As WOSSNAME, the Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion, puts it:

WOSSNAME would like to raise a toast to Sir Pterry on the occasion of his birthday (28th April). Congratulations, and keep those books coming!

Indeed.

Explore his world at Terry Pratchett books.com

I ♥ this

I spotted this bumper sticker in the parking lot today.

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
So stop whining and pay your taxes

Monday Science Links

This set of science is a bit late, I know, okay a lot late but things have been hectic... Sorry and they'll come in more regularly again now.

• Bec at Save your breath for running, ponies looks at cuttlefish laying eggs on seahorses (and don't miss Cuttle's comment, either!): Oh Cuttlefish. I thought it would kind of go without saying that you can’t just lay your eggs wherever you want. People have their own shit going on, they don’t need to deal with yours as well. And I’m not telling you this just to be an arsehole, I’m telling you this because people are already talking about it at the office. Like, remember that time you went to the kitchen and that douchebag from accounts, who always takes forever at the coffee machine because he wanders off halfway through and you don’t want to move his cup because you’re kind of weird like that so you have to wait for like five minutes for him to come back before you can have your turn, was there? And he’s all, “Hey look. It’s raining.” And you’re like, “Yeah. Hey can you hold these?” “What? For how long? Hey!“ But you were already back at your desk, pretending to be on an important call or something, and that douchebag from accounts had to carry your eggs around for like three weeks?


• At Magma Cum Laude Jessica has a couple of posts on words that have come up in connection with the Eyjafjallajökull-Fimmvörduháls eruptions, jökulhlaup and tephra: Tephra is a major hazard associated with volcanoes. Bombs tend to be more of a problem in the vicinity of a volcano, but as many people in northern Europe are finding out, smaller particles like lapilli and ash can travel much higher and farther. Ash from a powerful eruption can reach the upper atmosphere, far higher than airplanes can fly; and because glass makes up a good portion of those ash particles, any plane that does fly through an ash cloud risks sucking glassy particles into its engines, where the glass can melt and re-solidify.
  


• Jessica at Bioephemera has some lovely Hubble shots: Space is amazing, isn't it? And Discovery has a wonderful slide show to check out, too.


• Brian at Laelaps tells us about bats with suction cups on their wings: In the tropical forests of Madagascar, there lives a very peculiar kind of bat. While most bats roost by hanging upside-down from cave ceilings or tree branches, the Madagascar sucker-footed bat (Myzopoda aurita) holds itself head-up thanks to a set of adhesive pads on its wings. Nor is it the only bat to do so. Thousands of miles away in the jungles of Central and South America, Spix's disk-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor) does the same thing, but how do their sucker pads work, and why do they choose to roost in a different way from all other bats?


• And we'll end with a couple of more posts on "that volcano in Iceland", first Ethan at Starts With a Bang, Ethan looks at lightning in ash clouds; at Eruptions, Erik gives us a look at the raminfications; and at Language Log Mark Liberman explains how to pronounce it.
  

Enjoy!

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: The rest of Kavanagh, Q.C., which I thoroughly enjoyed (except for one anvillicious and annoying episode where he goes to Florida.) The odd thing to me is how the barristers flip back and forth between prosecuting and defending. A few more eps of Judge John Deed, which is equally well-plotted and -acted, but features a thoroughly obnoxious main character. Still enjoyable, though at times a bit heavy-handed (as in the story arc about cell phones causing brain tumors, sheesh).

TV: Modern Family, still making me laugh out loud. The Jay-Phil coaching scenes were hilarious, and Cam and Mitchell's angst over the job situation was very, very funny as is Mitchell's new boss.

Read: The Prisoner of Zenda, again. Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert, a collection of reviews of movies he didn't like. The Riddles of Epsilon, a nice YA fantasy (contemporary). A brilliant novel called The Other Family by Joanna Trollope. Two books by James Shapiro, a niche study of Oberammergau and a brilliant look at the Shakespearen authorship question called Contested Will.

My "True Political Self"

Not a surprise, I suppose... How about you?

You are a Social Liberal (86% permissive) Economic Liberal (5% permissive You are best described as a: Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Sky Watch: Spring

This is the sky over College Park on a rough spring day - March at its most iconic.





more Sky Watchers here

Happy Birthday, Ella

Ella Fitzgerald was born today in Newport News, Virginia, in 1917. Recording more than 200 albums, many still available - or available again on cd - The First Lady of Song was one of the most influential jazz singers ever. Her voice spanned three octaves and she had a legendary purity of tone and phrasing, and a tremendous improvisational ability, especially in scat. I grew up listening to her, and one of my favorite albums is the wonderful Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella & Louis, Ella & Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess.

OK, they've officially gone too far

I came home this evening after a week which left me too drained for anything creative and settled down with Chinese delivery and the laptop to read Carolyn Hax's chat. She opened by mentioning that she was wearing her Caps t-shirt. She closed with this:

Caps T-shirt?: Does this mean you are no longer a Red Sox fan? Or do you root for both until the day they meet in the World Series?

Carolyn Hax: I have a lot of room in my heart. It got tough when the Giants and Patriots met in the Super Bowl, but otherwise this kind of poly- is jolly.

I have to say, though, that the Caps have been the most fun.

The Lords of Baseball have made some crappy decisions in their time (designated hitter, inter-league play) but this?

Too far.

Happy Birthday, Will

Today (most likely) in 1654 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon was born the Swan of Avon, the Bard, William Shakespeare.

Does anything need to be added to that? How does one choose which poem, which quote?

I can't.

Go here to find your own.

Happy Birthday, Clarence

Clarence Darrow was born today in 1857. The defense attorney for Ossian Sweet & his family, in one of the most racially charged cases (a black doctor moving into a white neighborhood in Detroit finds his house under attack, and someone in the white mob is killed; the whole black family is charged with murder); for Leopold & Loeb (not that they were innocent, but against the death penalty); for several union men in the Haywood trial and other Western Mining Union trials; and of course, in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

There will never be another Darrow. He was, like us all, a product of his times. For him, it was a time of class conflict so intense as to border on class warfare. It was a time during which the Radical Left-- anarchists, socialists, communists-- were at the peak of their influence. It was a time of Jim Crow, of lynchings, a time during which the Klu Klux Klan called the shots in parts of our country. It was a time of unprecedented xenophobia. It was a time of whirl and social change-- a time when the modernist notion of asking whether a behavior pleased one's own intellect began to challenge the Victorian way of asking whether the behavior was approved of by society. Mechanistic thinking was in the air: Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud. Darrow was shaped, in both positive and negative ways, by these forces. Invariably, he saw his client's cases as inextricably linked to these large philosophical and social issues. He fought his battles not just for his clients, but also for the hearts and minds of the American people.

There will never be another Darrow. Power has shifted in the American courtroom since he ended his career. It's shifted away from attorneys and juries and to judges. There are more constraints operating on trial lawyers today; trials are more scripted. Few modern judges would let a defense attorney call a prosecutor as a witness; few judges today let attorneys depict their client's cause as bound up in the mechanistic workings of the ambivalent universe; the personal stories, the biting sarcasm, and the everpresent poetry that we find in Darrow's summations would likely be met today with judicial disapprobation.

There will never be another Darrow. In the pre-television, newspaper world of Darrow, words mattered more than images. Oratorical skills were valued; whole speeches were heard and were read-- not just sound bites. The ability to use words well could make one a hero in Darrow's time, a time that was the Age of Heroes (Ruth, Lindbergh). Clarence Darrow was at the same time one of the best loved and most hated men of his time-- it is hard to imagine a trial attorney achieving that status today.

There will never be another Darrow. In his time, there was a general belief that intellectual battles could be won, not just fought. That Science could beat Fundamentalism or that Fundamentalism could beat Science. That Trade Unionism would win, or Trade Unionism would be routed-- there seemed no middle way.

This is from an essay by Prof. Douglas Linder, to be found here

Until Thursday

Down near the E Street Cinema is this restaurant, which really needs to fix their sign before people stop coming!

Hawks have babies too

At the Washington Post is a heart-warming story about office workers saving ducklings from a hawk.

The ducklings were small and fuzzy and brown. The hawk was big and slick and hook-beaked. There were 11 ducklings, some witnesses originally thought, but later only 10 could be found. So the theory developed that either one had been eaten or that the original number was a miscount, which was an explanation that everyone liked better. Ten ducklings became the official story.

The 10 ducklings were toddling around the corner of 18th and F streets NW on Wednesday morning, having escaped their nest in the shrubbery outside of the stately DACOR Bacon House Foundation. Their mother was nowhere in sight.

The hawk was perched on the green awning of the House, and most everyone agreed that you could tell by its strutting and beady eyes that it was up to no good, no good at all.

They took the ducklings to a nearby pond and turned them loose near a "pair" of mallards. Of course, that drake won't stick around (they don't), and I have to wonder if the duck will raise some stray ducklings instead of incubating her own clutch.

But the main thing is: why do these people immediately characterize the hawk as evil? What do they expect hawks to eat? Not to mention, do they want to be hip deep in ducks? 11 ducklings per pair every year? None of them being eaten? Yikes.

Ted's tenses

In Sally Forth, Sally's been fretting about not being spontaneous enough. Today she looks for a time she was spontaneous. What interests me is Ted: his use of the past tense ("everyone we knew") indicates that they scared everyone so much they had to make new friends.

Most famous Latin sentence

Over at David Crystal's blog a comment called Et verbum caro factum est "possibly the most famous Latin sentence".

My immediate thought was "That can't be the most famous".

My next thought was Veni, vidi, vici and then Et tu, Brute?

A coworker suggests Cogito, ergo sum.

How about you?

1 down, 1137 to go....

One of the 1138 things you get from a $35 marriage license and quick trip to Reno or the local internet-diploma'd preacher is the right to visit your spouse in the hospital and make medical decisions for them. Supposedly, you can get that with a durable power of attorney, but if you don't happen to have that in your pocket when your same-sex spouse is hit by a bus, you don't get to go to the hospital with them, and you may in fact be kept out of their room while they're dying even if you show up with the paperwork.

Now, that won't be the case at any hospital that gets Medicare or Medicaid money. (Of course, you will still need the paperwork...)

President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night while he was at a fundraiser in Miami.

Administration officials and gay activists, who have been quietly working together on the issue, said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation's health-care institutions. Obama's order will start a rule-making process at HHS that could take several months, officials said.

Hospitals often bar visitors who are not related to an incapacitated patient by blood or marriage, and gay rights activists say many do not respect same-sex couples' efforts to designate a partner to make medical decisions for them if they are seriously ill or injured.

The new rules will not apply only to gays. They also will affect widows and widowers who have been unable to receive visits from a friend or companion. And they would allow members of some religious orders to designate someone other than a family member to make medical decisions....

But it is clear that the document focuses on gays. A number of areas remain in which federal law requires proof of marriage, including receiving Social Security benefits and in taxes.

"The General Accounting Office has identified 1,138 instances in federal law where marriage is important," said one gay rights activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the White House formally announced the directive. "We've knocked off one of them."

Without Comment

from Glenn Greenwald:

Instead, here you have the Obama DOJ in all its glory: no prosecutions (but rather full-scale immunity extended) for war crimes, torture, and illegal spying. For those crimes, we must Look Forward, Not Backward. But for those poor individuals who courageously blow the whistle on oozing corruption, waste and illegal surveillance by the omnipotent public-private Surveillance State: the full weight of the "justice system" comes crashing down upon them with threats of many years in prison.

Sky Watch: Siletz Bay

An early April morning in Lincoln City - Siletz Bay is calm while the ocean - just the other side of that bit of land - is rough, and the sky is serene...





more Sky Watchers here

More women?

I'm watching Kavanagh, Q.C. on DVD - John Thaw (from Morse) as (duh) a barrister. The first season is from 1995, long enough ago that, I suppose, you could realistically have a misogynistic jerk as a senior member of chambers. At any rate, they do (along with the just slightly dim head of chambers and the feisty woman...) and when they were discussing having a young female barrister join them, the only woman already a member made a remark about people who were against women as barristers.

"I hope that wasn't aimed at me. I want to see more of women in court," says Jeremy the jerk, to which Julia replies, "You want to see more of women period."

I had put the subtitles on earlier, as I was having a bit of a problem with one character's accent, and they were still on. I'd noticed the subtitler had been leaving out a word or two here and there, trying to cope with rapid dialog. There were some left out of this, too, but this time I think it missed the point. The exchange read like this:

"I hope that wasn't aimed at me. I want to see more women in court." "You want to see more women period."

The line as spoken has a clear implication that the written version does not.

Happy Birthday, Leonardo

Bird Cams

Here is a list of some bird cams (nest cams) available out there ... (I'm putting them in the sidebar, too.)

Falcon nesting http://www.buffalo.edu/webcam/falconcam.html

Eagle nesting http://outdoorchannel.com/Conservation/EagleCam.aspx

Eagle nesting http://www.suttoncenter.org/pages/live_eagle_camera

Barn owl nesting http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100160

Barred owl nesting http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100192

Wood duck nesting http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100167

Eastern bluebirds nesting http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100169

Phoebes nesting http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100201

Comments are closed, due to a spate of things resembling this (though most are longer):
Elation is something conclusive and unabridged in itself, as being the target and close of all down-to-earth activities whatever .... Joyfulness then we define as the active train of the recall in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue.

Happy Birthday, Tom

Today is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.

Surely - surely - no more need be said.

Why did he send it on, then?

Sigh. Another politician sends email full of racism and porn while running on "values" - in this case, as "the only Republican in the race who agrees 100 percent with conservative values." (Please, no easy jokes about how likely that is to be true, etc.)

Now, we all know somebody who does this - someone who's apparently constitutionally incapable of not hitting "forward" and filling in his whole contacts list on every idiotic email he gets. When you call them on it, they often respond with a less politician-like version of this:

Carl Paladino has forwarded close friends hundreds of email messages he received. Many of these emails he received were off color, some were politically incorrect, few represented his own opinion, and almost none of them were worth remembering.

In other words, I didn't think it was funny either and anyway it's no big deal.

The thing is: if it doesn't represent your opinion and you don't think it's funny... why are you sending it to me? Do you think it represents my opinion, or that I'll think it's funny? Your friend who sent them to you - have you bothered to tell him they're not what you like? And for crying out loud, how would he know you'd just hit delete as soon as you saw the size of the message? That's what most of us do when our uncle with the horrible taste in jokes sends us another email...

I just don't buy the "I don't think it's funny either" defense.

Conjunction Oddness

This sign is posted at Yaquina Head Park, at the access to one of the intertidal zones - tidal pools you can explore. I believe the sign designer (text here for those who can't read the sign) was led astray by "parallel structure". Those neat columns, with a "but don't" between the two injunctions - do this but don't do that - look neat, but read that last sentence.

Be Careful ... but don't ... ignore the sea -- it's dangerous!

It seems to me that "don't ignore the sea" isn't in contrast to "be careful" the way that "but don't pick them" is to "look at the plants" - compare, for example, "be careful but don't be afraid to get your feet wet".

I believe that "and don't" would be far better here. Otherwise, one is led to believe that turning one's back on the sea isn't part of a general "being careful" which is (especially on the Oregon coast) emphatically not so.

When You Explore the Intertidal Zone -
Look at the animals and plants and touch them gently ...	...but don't...	... pick them up, or pull or pry them off
Collect and take home driftwood ...	...but don't...	... collect or take home anything else
Watch seals and sea.s and seabirds ...	...but don't...	... get close or harass them
Be Careful ...	...but don't...	... ignore the sea -- it's dangerous!

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: Judge John Deed: Exacting Justice, the pilot for what looks like a very good BBC series about a judge who's - one hesitates to use the word "maverick" nowadays, so shall we say "independent minded"?

TV: Caught up on some things I halfway expected to just chuck. Flash Forward - I was really about ready to lose interest in this, but the first ep back had Dominic Monaghan in a tour de force performance that has (perhaps temporarily) caused me to reconsider. I still get powerfully bored by Mark & Olivia, and the whole Afghanistan subplot is too incoherent as yet ... but Simon is now really interesting. V on the other hand is totally boring. I might stick around one more week to see if the secret Erika is hiding from her son is interesting, though. However, I feel the odds that it's anything at all surprising or interesting are quite slim, given the utter predictability of the rest of this show... Anna killed her mate after sex? Ooo, I totally did not see that coming. (sarcasm off...) On the other hand, The Mentalist continues to be quite entertaining, and I must say the story in TV Guide led me to believe the new boss would be (realistically) down on Jane. The show is built on a premise of (a) Jane won't change and (b) Jane can't be fired or there'd be no show, so trying to build up suspense like that just irritates me. But this approach - Jane, you're golden; Lisbon, you're at risk - this approach is intriguing.

Read: More Thorndyke - which is interesting chiefly for the period details, including the remarkably unabashed anti-Semitism. Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone in Ukrainian.

Birds in Oregon

Here are a few of the birds I saw in Oregon ...


First up, a male Bufflehead from Astoria

Here's an American Wigeon in Astoria; there were a few there along with the Bufflehead and Scaup, but they kept to themselves.

Here is a male Bufflehead and a female Greater Scaup from a mixed flock in Astoria

Here's a pair (or at least a male and female) Greater Scaup

Here's a Thayer's Gull in flight over Siletz Bay in Lincoln City (I took this out the window of our hotel - the Looking Glass Inn, which had a great location and view)

Here's a raft of Greater Scaup on the Columbia River near Cathlamet, Washington

Here are eight Bufflehead and one Scaup from Astoria

These Wood Ducks were on a small pond off Devil's Lake in Lincoln City; it was behind a restaurant called the Wildflower Café on 101.


Pretty much everything we saw was gulls or crows, but there were a lot of nice ducks as well (as you can see), quite a few eagles, and the occasional finch or blackbird. More in this album.

Sky Watch: As above, so below

The weather changes on Oregon's Central Coast




more Sky Watchers here

Mystery Red-tailed Hawks

Help! These raptors - there were two of them - were hovering in the air above Yaquina Head on Thursday last. They were high in the air, mostly absolutely still but occasionally shifting in a loop that brought them back to roughly the same spot, and they were there for a couple of hours, at least. They looked so big we thought they were eagles, which obviously they are not. The question is, of course: what are they?

I'd have thought that face - with the dark stripe and the light cheeks (auriculars?) - the white at the wrist, and the white stripe on the broad tail would make them easy to identify. But nothing in my guide seems to match. I'm leaning toward Red-tailed Hawk (and several commenters agree; Mike of 10000 Birds says "the black edge on the wing and the belly-band" are the identifiers), because the book says they are "quite variable in color" but I'm just not sure.

But they were breath-taking to see, hanging dead still in what was quite a strong wind.

(I played a little with the color, as you can see.)

Happy Birthday, Joseph

Today in 1847, in Makó, Hungary, Joseph Pulitzer was born (yes, the Prize Pulitzer). He said:

"Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together."

Gosh. I hope not....

Happy Birthday, Edweard

Today in 1830 Eadweard Muybridge was born. A social climber and kind of a jerk, he was not also an extremely talented photographer. He was able to freeze the motion of a galloping horse - and change the way we looked at it forever.

Check out the Wikipedia entry where they have animations of this sequence and a galloping bison, too!

Pronoun?

And here's a good one, from today's WaPo Crossword. Note, please, 37D:



"Esta" is a pronoun? No wonder I have trouble with Spanish!!!

update: for those who don't read comments, esta is, of course (to Spanish speakers, at least), a pronoun. I refuge in a comment from a co-worker: "I'd say it's more Spanish 103 or 201. Ella is your Spanish 101 pronoun!"

Happy Birthday, Tom

Today is the 82nd birthday of the inimitable Tom Lehrer. His performing career was brief but wonderful.

Here's one of his many very funny songs - one of my favorites - along with the introduction he usually gave it when he performed.

For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. and I thought it would be interesting to stea- to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know; I could be making 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Whos the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please research.

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same,
And Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write.
It was on analytic and algebraic topology of
Locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobach -

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: (russian double-talk)
It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: (russian double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to The Eternal Triangle,
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!

more Lehrer lyrics here

The other extreme

Okay, I get that not everyone wants to fight through the Sunday New York Times crossword. But is this any better:

57A Farm credit administration (abbr.) : FCA
78A Reserve Officers Training Corps (abbr.) : ROTC
90A Also known as (abbr.) : AKA
14D East southeast (abbr.) : ESE
29D Interlibrary loan (abbr.) : ILL
82D Deoxyribonucleic acid (abbr.) : DNA

All genuine clues from the spring Secular Humanist Bulletin...

The Week in Entertainment

TV: Modern Family - I was surprised to read complaints that it was an iPad commercial - it's so totally like Phil to want one, and the episode was really about that, and their efforts to get it for him. Anyway, I enjoyed it!

Read: Crawlspace. Monkeyluv: And Other Essays by Robert Sapolsky, very good. Some R Austin Freeman Thorndyke novels and shorts.

Happy Birthday, Igor

Igor Svyatoslavich (April 3, 1151 – 1202) was the prince of Novgorod-Seversky from 1180 to 1202. As Wikipedia says: His skirmishes against the Polovtsians would most likely have passed into oblivion if they had not been immortalized in The Tale of Igor's Campaign and the opera Prince Igor.

Не начать ли нам, братья, по-стародавнему скорбную повесть о походе Игоревом, Игоря Святославича! Или да начнется песнь ему по былям нашего времени - не по замышлению Боянову! Ведь Боян вещий когда песнь кому сложить хотел, то белкою скакал по дереву, серым волком по земле, сизым орлом кружил под облаками. Поминал он давних времен рати - тогда пускал десять соколов на стаю лебедей; какую догонял сокол, та первая песнь пела старому Ярославу, храброму Мстиславу, что зарезал Редедю пред полками касожскими, красному Роману Святославичу. Боян же, братья, не десять соколов на стаю лебедей пускал, но свои вещие персты на живые струны возлагал; они же сами князьям славу рокотали.

«Would it not be fitting, brothers.
To begin with ancient words
The sorrowful song of the campaign of Igor,
Igor Svyatoslavich. Now let us begin this song
In the manner of a tale of today,
And not according to the notions of Boyan.
Now the wizard Boyan,
If he wanted to make a song to someone,
His thought would range through the trees;
It would range like a grey wolf across the land,
Like a blue eagle against the clouds.
His words would recall the
Early years of princely wars:
Then he would release ten falcons
Onto a flock of swans;
The first swan to be touched,
It would be the first to sing:
To old Yaroslav, to brave Mstislav,
Who cut down Rededya before the
Armies of the Kasogians,
To the handsome Roman Svyatoslavich.
Now Boyan, brothers, would not
Release ten falcons
Onto a flock of swans,
But his magic fingers would
He place on the living strings,
And they themselves would
Sound forth praises to the princes...» (tr Robert Howes)

You can find the Slovo on line: in OCS and several Russian translations here, along with poetic works inspired by it, with Ukrainian studies, and in Leonard Magnus's English translation (see below.)

Were it not seemly to us, brothers, to begin in ancient diction the tales of the toils of the army of Ígoŕ, Ígoŕ Svyatoslávič?

[Or] to begin this song in accordance with the ballads of this time, and not like the invention of Boyán?

For the wise Boyán when he wished to make a song for any man, in his thought used to fly in the trees, [race] like a grey wolf on earth, [soar] like a dusky eagle beneath the clouds. He used to recall the words and the dissensions of the early times.

Then he released falcons on a flock of swans; whichever [falcon] first arrived, its swan sang a song,--to the elder Yarosláv, to Mstíslav the Brave who slew Redélya in front of the Kasog hosts, [or] to Román Svyatoslávič the Handsome.

Yet, Boyán, my brothers, did not let loose ten falcons on a flock of swans, but laid his own wizard fingers on the living strings, which then themselves throbbed out praise for the princes.

No, she wasn't

The headline reads

Russia says Moscow bomber was teenage "Black Widow"

But that sobriquet is reserved for women who marry for money and then kill their husbands. Or possibly - possibly - money isn't involved. But still, it's the whole "killing their mate" thing that sparks the name "Black Widow".

This child was a widow who killed other people. It's not a good thing to do (well, nor is the other!), but it's not being a "Black Widow".

I was genuinely curious about that - was this a murder gone wrong, a sort of attempt to hide the real motive? But no. It's just a figure of speech gone wrong...

Happy Birthday, Hans Christian

Today in Odense, Denmark, in 1805 Hans Christian Anderson (I can never read that name without Danny Kaye's voice in my head) was born.

His original stories are immensely popular, though they were often so dark that the original English translations were heavily edited into sentimentality.

Some of his many stories are here.

Sky Watch: Depoe Bay

Looking out at the Pacific from Depoe Bay near the harbor, this morning.


more Sky Watchers here

Deeply Ironic

He also had Rev 14:9-11 on his bumper...