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Top 10 Underappreciated Parks
From vast wilderness to varied history, from swamp to desert, these places should be more famous.
From the National Geographic book The 10 Best of Everything—National Parks
Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon deserve the appreciation they receive, but the National Park System includes nearly 400 units, scores of lesser known sites that well reward a visit—and that are far less crowded than big-name parks. From vast wilderness to varied history, from swamp to desert, these places should be more famous.
Great Basin National Park, Nevada
Alpine Lakes, a Glacier, and Lehman Caves
Feel the urge to climb a 13,000-foot mountain? Want to tour a beautiful cave? Eager to backpack to alpine lakes and through high desert where few others venture? Want to marvel at some of the oldest living things on Earth? All that and more awaits at this park in eastern Nevada, where glacier-sculpted, 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak rises like an outpost of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Basin. A beautifully scenic drive climbs to more than 10,000 feet on Wheeler's flank, providing fabulous views with minimal effort. At the road's end, an easy hike leads to groves of picturesquely contorted bristlecone pines, some more than 3,000 years old. Wheeler is also home to the southernmost glacier in the Northern Hemisphere (small, but geologically unique). After exploring the mountains, take a ranger-guided tour of Lehman Caves, where paths snake through marble and limestone passages featuring strange helictites, delicate argonite crystals, and rare formations called cave shields. Travelers to Great Basin National Park can find these attractions in a place that sees only about 90,000 visitors a year.
Buffalo National River, Arkansas
America's First National River
This beautiful northwestern Arkansas stream was designated America's first official national river in 1972, after years of controversy pitting those who wanted to protect its crystal-clear water, lush forests, and spectacular bluffs against those who wanted the river dammed to form a sprawling reservoir. People who canoe or raft the 135-mile Ozark river today—the spring white water on the upper parts or the gentle flat water of its lower reaches—give thanks that the conservationists won. Three official wilderness areas along its length add to the "wild" quality of the river. At places like Steel Creek, sheer sandstone cliffs rise 400 feet from the water's edge, and all along the river are gravel bars for primitive camping, swimming holes for cooling off on a summer day, and rewarding hiking trails. There's even a ghost town on the lower river: Rush, where zinc was once mined. All in all, Buffalo National River preserves some of the finest scenery in the central United States, as well as one of the country's best float streams.
Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida
Wetlands and Swamps
There aren't very many big cypress trees in this southern Florida park; rather, it's named for the expansive size of the forests in Big Cypress Swamp, covering hundreds of thousands of acres. The park offers many of the attractions of Everglades National Park, just to the south, with only a small fraction of the visitation. Driving either of Big Cypress's two scenic roads will bring into view alligators and abundant birdlife, including such striking species as wood stork, anhinga, white ibis, purple gallinule, and snowy egret. The Turner River, Upper Wagonwheel, and Birdon Road Loop Drive passes for miles alongside canals built for drainage long ago, now creating a virtual roadside zoo of wildlife.
Colorado National Monument, Colorado
Southwest Red-Rock Country
The red-rock country of the Southwest is justifiably famous for its spectacular canyons, buttes, spires, and other sandstone formations. Colorado National Monument offers a splendid array of eroded cliffs and pinnacles in an accessible and easily toured location, without the crowds and long-distance drives associated with more famous sites in the region. Much of the park can be seen on the 23-mile Rim Rock Drive, which can be reached just a few minutes off I-70 near Grand Junction, Colorado. Trails here range from the short, easy Window Rock Trail to more strenuous hikes such as the route into Monument Canyon, which passes major rock sculptures including Independence Monument (a 450-foot-high sandstone monolith), Kissing Couple, and the Coke Ovens.
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Glaciers and Boreal Forests
Although Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve draws more visitors, the state's Wrangell–St. Elias deserves recognition as well. It is the largest national park in the United States and site of 9 of the 16 highest mountains in the country. Many outfitters and concessionaires offer adventure tours into the park, including river rafting, sea kayaking, scenic flights, and guided glacier hikes. There's another option, too: Travelers can (with care and depending on weather) explore the park on two mostly unpaved roads, which provide access to trailheads, campsites, and historic sites. The McCarthy Road runs 61 miles through boreal forest to the tiny community of McCarthy, following an old railroad right-of-way and crossing rivers on high trestles. Nearby are the remains of a once thriving copper mine, now a national historic landmark. The 42-mile Nabesna Road passes through spectacular mountain landscape and offers the chance to see Dall sheep, as well as other wildlife. Lucky visitors might come across caribou, moose, grizzly (brown) and black bears, mountain goats, gray wolves, coyotes, red foxes, wolverines, and porcupines. Both these drives are challenging and require planning and preparation, but offer thrilling experiences as a reward.
Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
Cave and Grasslands
The film shown in the visitor center at this South Dakota park is titled "Wind Cave: One Park, Two Worlds"—an apt slogan. Not only does the park feature Wind Cave, with passages full of unusual and beautiful formations, the 44-square-mile landscape aboveground is home to a diverse array of wildlife. In 1903, this site became the first park in the world created to protect a cave, noted primarily for its outstanding display of boxwork, an unusual formation of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs. Eventually Wind Cave came to be recognized as the world's fourth largest cave. Various ranger-guided tours are offered, including one suitable for people with physical limitations. Before or after a cave tour, driving or hiking in the park can bring sightings of bison, elk, pronghorn, mule deer, coyotes, and prairie dogs. The park's approximately 450 bison move around as they graze; it's easier to see the appealing little prairie dogs, whose colonies are easily visible near roads.
Mojave National Preserve, California
Desert Landscape
This expansive southern California park doesn't show up often on travelers' radar screens, and that's a shame—at least in one way. For those who love Mojave National Preserve, its very remoteness, unpeopled landscapes, and opportunities for solitude are among its best features. Adventurous travelers can explore tall sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones, the world's largest forest of Joshua trees, and the remnants of a history of mining, ranching, and military activity. The preserve encompasses three of the four major North American deserts—Mojave, Great Basin, and Sonoran—and spans an elevation range from 7,929 feet atop Clark Mountain to 880 feet in the desert. All this adds up to a great biological diversity including, after wet winters, colorful displays of desert wildflowers.
- Nat Geo Expeditions
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, Louisiana
Cajun Cooking, Music, and History
Sometimes people ask why this multifaceted park is named for Jean Lafitte, a notorious 19th-century pirate and smuggler who traded in slaves and lived mostly outside the law. The answer . . . well, it's complicated, just like the cultural landscape of southern Louisiana. Even today, this melting pot reflects the influence of pre-Columbus America, France, Spain, England, Africa, the Canary Islands, Germany, the Caribbean, the Confederate States, and many other places. You can learn a lot about local history at any or all of the six separate sites in this park, which spread across southern Louisiana from the swamps of the Mississippi River Delta to the prairies farther west. One can take a history walk in the French Quarter of New Orleans, see abundant wildlife in a nature preserve, attend a live radio broadcast of Cajun music in an old-time theater, visit the site of the famed 1815 Battle of New Orleans, watch a Cajun-cooking demonstration, and enjoy many other activities—too many to be summarized here. In few places in American do unique traditions endure as they have along the bayous and marshes of southern Louisiana.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico
Center of the Ancient Pueblo People
Other Native American sites in the Southwest are more famous—including Mesa Verde in Colorado and Canyon de Chelly in Arizona—but none was more important in its day than the communities that developed in Chaco Canyon, in what is now northwestern New Mexico. Only this park's remoteness and distance from major highways have kept it from greater renown as a historical destination. From around A.D. 850 to 1250, Chaco Canyon was a major ceremonial, trade, and administrative center for the culture called the ancient Pueblo, with elaborate and spectacular public architecture that matched its highly developed social organization. For reasons unknown, the center's inhabitants abandoned the site in the mid-13th century. In recognition of its importance, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and associated locations (including Aztec Ruins National Monument, 60 miles north) have been designated a World Heritage site. The park's nine-mile Canyon Loop Drive accesses six major archaeological sites, including "great houses": very large multistory public buildings with adjacent kivas, or ceremonial rooms. Truly awe-inspiring in both its appearance and historical significance, Chaco Culture is well worth the journey to see it.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona
Six Million Years of Volcanic Activity
Too few of the millions of people who visit Arizona's Grand Canyon each year detour to this fascinating park just northeast of Flagstaff. Set in a landscape full of dozens of symmetrical cones and other evidence of six million years of volcanic activity, Sunset Crater is a classic example of a cinder cone, named for the reddish oxidized material at its top. Many volcanic features can be seen along trails, including lava "squeeze-ups," spatter cones, and lava bubbles. No climbing is allowed on Sunset Crater Volcano, so symmetrical that it looks like every child's drawing of a volcano. To see what the terrain is like, though, you can climb to the top of nearby Lenox Crater.


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SoundBox—SF Symphony's new space for musical experimentation
Christmas started early for ARThound when a dear friend invited me to Saturday night's unveiling of SoundBox, MTT's (Michael Tilson Thomas') and San Francisco Symphony's (SFS) newest venture. SoundBox was designed to fill a gap in Bay Area music scene by providing an experimental space where anything musical can happen and to engage a younger, hipper audience with SFS and serious music. Judging from Saturday's thrilling reception which enthralled its sellout crowd of 450, Soundbox will do all that and more. It also seems poised to give our brilliant but nerdy MTT some street swagger, the kind of coolness cred that he's been aching for while collecting all those Grammies for classical recordings. If you haven't heard, SoundBox is a huge refurbished music space at 300 Franklin Street (in San Francisco). Formerly known as Zellerbach A, it was one of SFS's most dour on-site rehearsal spaces, ironically renowned for its dead sound.
With generous patron funding and the board's desire to revision SFS' audience outreach, the cavernous space was entirely revamped. Berkeley's Meyer Sound was engaged to install its patented multi-speaker "Constellation" system, transforming the space into a virtual sound lab. Now, with the push of touchscreen button, the venue can seamlessly tweak its acoustics (reverberation and decay times) for various pieces in a performance allowing otherworldly sounds to emerge from its tremendously talented SFS musicians and choral members. Add state-of-the-art video projection capacity, making for an incredible visual experience, sleek quilted leather ottoman and low tables (even the furnishings will be tweaked with each performance), a fully-stocked bar serving thematic cocktails and innovative cuisine—wella! SoundBox has the grit of an European art house, the verve of a sophisticated nightclub, the acoustics of a world class concert hall, and, as if it needs to be said, the world's best musicians playing tunes exquisitely curated by MTT.
On Saturday, 7:45PM, the crowd was already lining up on Franklin Street. The buzz: no one knew exactly what to expect but we were all excited by the program we'd read about online and the promise of road-testing something completely new. The pre-concert hour was dedicated to John Cage, who believed that every sound can be music, and featured a musical feast of his "Branches," featuring electronically amplified giant cacti, and "Inlets" which coaxed sounds from shells filled with water that gurgled when moved and from amplified burning pinecones. As people entered the darkened foyer of Soundbox and were confronted with Cage's music, they passed by a curious gallery space, specially curated by MTT, that included beautifully lit minimalist arrays of live cacti, a table of sea shells in a pool of water and colorful huge multi-layered projections of cacti. Wow…felt like entering one of those East European art happenings I'd covered in the 1980's. Once we passed through a closed black door, we entered the spacious main hall, which offered a hip but relaxed atmosphere—two low wooden platforms served stages and lots of low leather seating that could be easily re-arranged. People were free to amble about and get a drink or just settle in and get busy with their phones and texting.
The inaugural run, called "Extremities," kicked off dramatically with "Stella splendens in monte," a brief anonymous Spanish work (local composer Mason Bates contributed the percussion arrangements.) The SFS chorus, in flowing robes, entered from the back of the hall, and made a dramatic procession to the stage, their lyrical voices swelling to fill every corner of the space. As they passed by each of us, we got a sampling of each singer's individual voice. From there, it only got better—a very well-thought sonic and visual feast was about to unfold and we were ravenous for it. The audience snapped their fingers, clapped, yowled and tossed their exquisite locks…and the musicians beamed with pride. A glowing MTT looked like he'd dropped a decade as he engaged with the audience in a very heartfelt way, talking about musical choices and the potential of the space.
Highpoints for ARThound: Steve Reich's minimalist "Music for Pieces of Wood" featured five SFS percussionists with tuned hardwood claves creating a pulsing bed of rhythmically complex continuous sound. This reminded me of the miraculous frog concerto I am treated to in my pond in Sonoma County every time a serious storm blows through. After 8 minutes of this mesmerizing sound, which was accompanied by projections of Adam Larsen's images of a New York skyline, we were all in trance mode. When it ended, and everyone stopped playing, we were left with a very perceptible silence, a void in the acoustic atmosphere that left us all profoundly aware of the power of sound to inflate and deflate the psyche.
Ravel's exquisite "Introduction and Allegro" (1905) shimmered and glowed when played by a small ensemble of seven SFS musicians including principal harpist Douglas Rioth and concertmaster Sasha Barantschik whose beloved 1742 Guarnerius del Gesù ("The David") cast a spell over the audience, some of whom swept away tears. The chamber piece showcased the space's ability to tease out nuances in the contrasting sonorities. The velvety woodwinds, the percussive harp and the warm resonance of the strings were all so clear, so distinct, that I felt I was getting a personal introduction to the possibilities of these instruments.
One of the evening's hip visuals was the Nordic visual art pioneer, Steina's (Steina Vasulka's), seven minute video, "Voice Windows" (1986), featuring the voice of Joan La Barbara. The short engrossing film was co-presented by SFS and SFMOMA and points to the limitless possibilities for future collaboration in a space like this. Since the early 1970's, Steina, in collaboration with Woody Vasulka, has explored intricate transformations of vision, space and sound, through digital technologies, mechanical devices and natural landscape. "Voice Windows" was an exquisite and haunting example of her artistry in manipulating digital and camera-generated images and layering that with "real" and altered sound.
After two intermissions, the evening closed with Monteverdi's glorious "Magnificat" (1610) from Vespro della Beata Vergine. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and is taken directly from the Gospel of Luke where the Virgin Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant with the future John the Baptist. When Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith, Mary sings the "Magnificat" in response. Talk about immersive—the 19 minute piece featured soloists, the chorus and orchestra, all in rapturous splendor with gorgeous golden-hued projections of a Venetian church enhancing the mood.
Details: The next Sound Box performance, "Curiosities," is January 9 and 10th, 2015. Doors open at 8 PM and performance starts at 9 PM. Tickets on sale now: $25 for open seating. The space accommodates 450 and will sell out quickly. The SoundBox website is not working correctly. Call the SFS Box office (415) 864-6000 to purchase tickets. SoundBox is located at 300 Franklin Street, San Francisco, CA. Parking: (is hell) Performing Arts Garage (360 Grove Street) or Civic Center Garage (between Polk, Larkin, Grove and McAllister).

subset: commoncrawl


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JPMorgan paying $650K to settle CFTC charges
WASHINGTON (AP) — JPMorgan Chase will pay $650,000 to settle charges by federal regulators that it filed inaccurate reports on the trading positions of some of its large customers.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the settlement Tuesday. The CFTC said that JPMorgan continued to submit inaccurate reports to the agency from 2012 through February of this year even though CFTC staff found errors in them and notified JPMorgan.
The New York bank neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the settlement. It agreed to certify in writing that it has improved and tested its procedures for filing reports. A company spokesman declined to comment.
The CFTC noted that JPMorgan used a third-party vendor to compile the daily reports on futures and options trading positions.
The agency said it uses the so-called "large trader" reports to assess potential risks to the markets.
The reports "are vital to the CFTC's role in monitoring market behavior and are important to members of the public, many of whom rely on that information in forming trading strategies," CFTC Enforcement Director Aitan Goelman said in a statement.


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You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'writing' category.
It's a dark night; you're in an unfamiliar city, slightly lost, but pretty sure you'll know where you are if you just get to the next corner. The streets are quiet. A stranger steps out of the gloom in front of you, and announces that certain words don't mean what you think they mean. They're words that you use but have never really felt comfortable with, words that you use mostly because you've heard them in set phrases, words like plethora.
Plethora, you wonder, could it be I'm using it wrong? That niggling uncertainty kicks in, the same niggling uncertainty that's pushed you to educate yourself all these years. It creeps further, darkening your mind. Have I been using words wrong? Your breath quickens — how many others have thought heard me say them before this stranger came up and told me I was wrong? Have I used one of them lately? Have I been judged? Your pulse races. Did I just say one? — is, is that why this stranger materialized to announce it was wrong?
The stranger says more words are being used wrong, by others, by you. These words are more common, common enough to be known but not common enough to be well-known: myriad, enormity. Oh God, you think, I've used those words in business writing! The uncertainty changes into certainty, certainty that you are wrong, and worse, that people know it. Important people know it. That's why you haven't been promoted, it's why your friends were laughing that one time and didn't say why. The stranger has you now. The stranger knows the dark spots on your soul. The stranger is almost touching you now, so close, so close. Your eyes meet. The stranger's eyes widen; this is it, the final revelation. Do you dare listen? You can't listen, you must listen:
"And you're using allow wrong, too!"
At which point the spell is broken — because c'mon, you're not using allow wrong. You'd definitely have noticed that. You push the stranger out of the way, and realize your hotel's just on the next block.
In the unfamiliar city of the Internet, I encountered such a stranger: Niamh Kinsella, writer of the listicle "14 words you've been using incorrectly this whole time". Kinsella argues that your usage doesn't fit with the true definition of these words, by which she usually means an early, obsolete, or technical meaning of the word.
Her first objection is to plethora, which she defines as "negative word meaning a glut of fluid". And so it was in the 1500s, when it entered the language as a medical term. This medical meaning persists in the present day, but additional figurative meanings branched off of it long ago — so long ago, in fact, that one of the meanings branched off, flourished for 200 years, and still had enough time to fade into obsolescence by now. The extant figurative meaning, the one that most everyone means when they use plethora, is antedated to 1835 by the Oxford English Dictionary, at which point it was usually a bad thing ("suffering under a plethora of capital", the OED quotes). But by 1882 we see the modern neutral usage: "a perfect plethora of white and twine-colored thick muslin".
The second objection is to myriad, and here Kinsella deviates by ignoring the early usage. She hectors: "It's an adjective meaning countless and infinite. As it's an adjective, it's actually incorrect to say myriad of." But in fact myriad entered English as a noun, either as a transliteration of the Greek term for "ten thousand", or as an extension of that very large number to mean "an unspecified very large number" (both forms are antedated by the OED to the same 1555 work). The adjectival form doesn't actually appear until two centuries later, the 1700s. Both nominal and adjectival forms have been in use from their inception to the present day; claiming that one or the other is the only acceptable form is just silly.*
There's no point in continuing this after the third objection, which is to using allow in cases that do not involve the explicit granting of permission. To give you an idea of what folly this is, think of replacements for allows in a supposedly objectionable sentence like "A functional smoke alarm allows me to sleep peacefully." The first ones that come to my mind are lets, permits, gives me the ability, and enables. That's the sign of a solid semantic shift; four of my top five phrasings of the sentence are all verbs of permission with the permission shifted to enablement. Kinsella herself has no beef with it when she isn't aiming to object, judging by her lack of objection to an article headlined "Are we allowed optimism now?".
This enablement usage isn't new, either; the OED cites "His condition would not allow of his talking longer" from 1732. (Permit without permission is antedated even further back, to 1553.) This oughtn't even to be up for debate; even if it were completely illogical — which, as an example of consistent semantic drift, it's not — the fact that it is so standard in English means that it is, well, standard. It is part of English, and no amount of insisting that it oughtn't to makes a difference. It's similar to the occasional objection I see to Aren't I?: even if I agreed it didn't make sense, virtually every (non-Scottish/Irish) English speaker uses it in place of amn't I?, so it's right. End of discussion.
Why do we fall for this over and over again? Why do we let people tell us what language is and isn't based on assertions that never have any references (Kinsella cites no dictionaries) and rarely hold up to cursory investigation? I don't know, but my guess is that it appeals to that universal mixture of insecurity and vanity that churns inside each of us.
We are convinced that we must be doing everything wrong, or — and perhaps worse — that we're doing most things right but there's some unexpected subset of things that we have no idea we're doing wrong. So if someone tells us we're wrong, especially if they candy coat it by saying that it's not our fault, that everyone's wrong on this, well, we just assume that our insecurities were right — i.e, that we were wrong. But then, aware of this new secret knowledge, these 14 weird tricks of language use, our vanity kicks in. Now we get to be the ones to tell others they're wrong. Knowing these shibboleths gives you the secret knowledge of the English Illuminati. Between our predisposition to believe we're wrong, our desire to show others up by revealing they're wrong, and our newfound membership in this elite brotherhood, what incentive do we have to find out that these rules are hogwash? All that comes out of skepticism is, well, this: me, sitting on my laptop, writing and rewriting while the sun creeps across a glorious sky on a beautiful day that I could have been spending on the patio of my favorite coffee shop, approaching my fellow patrons, dazzling them with my new conversation starter: "I bet you use plethora wrong. Allow me to explain."
*: In fact, Kinsella undermines her own definition of "countless and infinite" in her supposedly correct example by using "countless and infinite" to describe the finite set of stars in the universe, so maybe she's just in love with the sound of her own hectoring.
"Poisonous—often confused with venomous—means a plant, animal, or substance capable of causing death or illness if taken into the body. Venomous means capable of injecting venom. A rattlesnake is not itself poisonous, because if you eat one it won't poison you. A blowfish will kill you if you eat it, so it is poisonous, but not venomous."
This is number six in Laura Hale Brockway's list of "8 words that may not mean what you think they mean" on PR Daily. And it's true that poisonous may not mean what you think it means, but this also implies that it may mean exactly what you think it means, and as it turns out, it does.
Though this was the first time I heard this complaint, it turns out to be mildly common. Paul Brians mentions it in his common errors — in fact, Brockway seems to have lifted half of her complaint from his. You can find a number of other online objectors, of course, but it's uncommon in printed usage guides; of the seven within my reach at the moment, only Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right complains about poisonous.
Conveniently, my edition of Write it Right is Jan Freeman's excellent centennial edition, which means that each of Bierce's complaints is accompanied by her research into it. About this issue, she writes:
"As usual, Bierce would like to fence the overlapping words into separate pens. But while venomous does describe rattlesnakes and other animals that poison victims with a bite or sting, poisonous has always been a broader term. Samuel Johnson knew both words, but in his Dictionary (1755) he referred to 'a poisonous serpent,' 'a poisonous insect,' and 'a poisonous reptile.'"
It's not just Johnson, either. The Oxford English Dictionary cites The Indian Queen, a play by Robert Howard and John Dryden (he of "no final prepositions" fame), with "poisonous Vipers" in 1665. Google Books can supply you a vast array of hits for "poisonous snakes" from the 1800s, if you need convincing of the lineage. Here's my favorite, as it's very clearly talking about snakes with venomous bites; it's written by someone studying the venom of the snakes, so this isn't some casual imprecise usage but the considered usage of a professional; and it's from 1839, so there's no arguing that this is some sloppy modern usage.
In short, the two words do not have distinct meanings; rather, one has a subset of the other's. This is common in English; I've previously written about jealousy/envy, verbal/oral, and compose/comprise, all of which display this to some degree.
In the case of venomous and poisonous, this oughtn't to be surprising, as their stems have this same relationship. A venom is one kind of poison, and similarly, being venomous is one way that an animal can be poisonous. The biggest clue that we aren't all wrong for using poisonous in place of venomous is that it's very rare to see the opposite extension. When people talk about "venomous plants", for instance, they're usually talking about plants that literally do sting, like stinging nettles or the gympie gympie. If people are just stupid or underinformed, they ought to make their errors symmetrically; here, the supposed error really only goes one way. (I'd expect asymmetric errors if one were much rarer than the other, but venomous isn't particularly rare.)
So poisonous and venomous overlap in general usage, and I'm having trouble seeing why anyone would expect or even want them to be separated. The only situation where it would potentially be worth having distinct definitions is if you're regularly dealing with things that contain poisons delivered by different methods. But if that's the goal, poisonous and venomous don't supply enough categories. Having poisonous describing anything but venomous is just strange, given that it doesn't make presumably critical distinctions between the poisoning methods of, say, tree frogs (touch) and pufferfish (ingestion).
Summary: Poisonous and venomous aren't totally distinct. It's fine to call a snake poisonous, even if it's its venom that's dangerous. But it's rare (and generally incorrect) to call something with a non-venom poison venomous. This is how it has been for hundreds of years in English. Objections to the subset relationship between poisonous and venomous are pretty rare, and outside of specialized contexts, pretty unfounded.
I'd presumed it's trivial to show that good grammar can improve your chances of success — not that good grammar is an indication of ability, but merely that having good grammar skills lends an appearance of credibility and competence that may or may not be backed up with actual skills for the task at hand. I strongly suspect, for instance, that a resume written in accordance with the basic rules of English grammar will be more likely to bring its writer an interview, all else being equal. Rather like legacy status in an application to an Ivy League school — except with an at-least-tenuous link to ability — I've imagined it serves as a little bonus.*
But having recently seen a few ham-handed attempts at this yield results approximately as convincing as a child's insistence that their imaginary friend was the one who knocked over the vase, I'm beginning to re-think my presumption.
For instance, I've recently found this terrible post and infographic from Grammarly that purports to show that — well, it's a little hard to say, because they've managed to write 500-some words without ever having a clear thesis. The infographic reports the grammatical error rates for three pairs of competing companies, and juxtaposes this with corporate data on the three pairs, presumably to look for correlations between the two.
I believe their claim is that fewer grammar mistakes are made by more successful companies. That's a pretty weak claim, seeing as it doesn't even require causation. We'd see this pattern if greater success led to improved grammar, perhaps by having money to hire editors; we'd see it if better grammar increased the company's performance; we'd see it if the two were caused by an unobserved third variable. That said, the study won't even find evidence for this tepid claim, and perhaps that is why they carefully fail to make the claim explicit.
The post tells the reader that "major errors undermine the brand's credibility" and that investors "may judge" them for it, but even these weak statements are watered down by the concluding paragraphs. This restraint from overstating their case is hardly laudable; it's clear that the reader is intended to look at these numbers and colors, this subtle wrinkled-paper background on the infographic, and draw the conclusion that Grammarly has stopped short of: you need a (i.e., their) grammar checker or you will lose market share!**
It might not seem worth bothering with a breakdown of the bad science going on in this infographic. Alas, the results were uncritically echoed in a Forbes blog post, and the conclusions were only strengthened in the re-telling. So let's look at exactly why this analysis fails to establish anything more than that people will see proof of their position in any inconclusive data.
Let's start by looking at the data underpinning the experiment. The company took 400 (!) words from the most recent LinkedIn postings (!) of three (!) pairs (!) of competing multinational corporations. We're not even looking at the equivalent of a single college admission essay from each company, in an age where companies are producing more publicly consumable text than ever before.
Not to mention, I looked at the LinkedIn posts from Coke, one of the companies tested. Nine of their last ten posts were, in their entirety: "The Coca-Cola Company is hiring: [position] in [location]". The tenth was "Coke Studio makes stars out of singers in India [link]". How do you assess grammaticality from such data?
Well, let's suppose the data is appropriate and see what results we get from it. Remember: the hypothesis is that lower error rates are correlated with higher corporate success (e.g., market share, revenue). Do we see that in the head-to-head comparisons?
- The first comparison is between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi has more errors than Coke, and, fitting the hypothesis, Coke has a higher market share! But Pepsi has higher revenues, as the infographic notes (and then dismisses because it doesn't fit the narrative). So we start with inconclusive data.
- The second comparison is between Google and Facebook. Google makes fewer errors and has higher corporate success. Let's take this one at face value: evidence in favor.
- The third comparison is between Ford and GM. Ford makes fewer errors but is worse on every financial metric than GM. "However, these numbers are close", the infographic contends. Evidence against.
So we have three comparisons. In one, which company is more successful is ambiguous. The two "decisive" comparisons are split. The data is literally equal in favor and in opposition to the conclusion. It is insulting that anyone could present such an argument and ask someone to believe it. If a student handed this in as an assignment, I would fail them without hesitation.***
What's richest about this to me is that the central conceit of this study is that potential consumers will judge poor grammar skills as indicative of poor capability as a company. I've never found convincing evidence that bad grammar is actually indicative of poor ability outside of writing; the construction crew that put together my house probably don't know when whom can be used, but my house is a lot more stable than it would be if Lynne Truss and I were the ones cobbling it together. But for all those people out there saying that good grammar is indicative of good logic, this clearly runs counter to that claim. Grammarly's showing itself incapable of making an reasoned argument or marshalling evidence to support a claim, yet their grammar is fine. How are poor logic skills not a more damning inability than poor grammar skills, especially when "poor grammar" often means mistakenly writing between you and I?
The Kyle Wienses out there will cluck their tongues and think "I would never hire someone with bad grammar", without even thinking that they've unquestioningly swallowed far worse logic. Sure enough, the Forbes post generated exactly the comments you'd expect:
"I figuratively cringe whenever grammar worthy of decayed shower scum invades my reading; it makes you wonder just how careful the company is of other corporate aspects (oh, gee, I don't know, say, quality as well)"
With comments like that, maybe these people are getting the company that best reflects them: superficial and supercilious, concerned more with window-dressing to appear intelligent than with actually behaving intelligently.
*: I, of course, don't mean that being obsessive about different than or something is relevant, but rather higher-level things like subject-verb agreement or checking sentence structures.
**: Though Grammarly makes an automated grammar checker, it wasn't used to assemble this data. Nor was it run on this data, so we don't know if it would even provide a solution to help out these grammatically deficient brands.
***: I don't mean to imply that this would be convincing if only the data were better and all three comparisons went the right way. There's no statistical analysis, not even a whiff of it, and there's no way you could convince me of any conclusion from this experiment as currently devised. But at least if the comparisons went the right way, I could understand jumping the gun and saying you've found evidence. As it is, it's imagining a gun just to try to jump it.
I have it on bad authority that English has died. You may have heard the linguistic Chicken Littles milling about Internet, each trying to come up with a more hyperbolic statement about the death of the language — or perhaps even society as a whole — because "twerk is now a real word", whatever that's supposed to mean. Ben Zimmer has a nice run-down of this "perfect lexicographical storm", and if you've been lucky enough to have missed out on it, let me offer a few sample Tweets:
The last one's best because it really couldn't be more wrong. No one has the power to make something "officially" a word,* and it wasn't the Oxford English Dictionary but the Oxford Dictionaries Online that added these entries. (The differences between the OED and ODO are detailed here.) I mean, seriously, if you're going to lecture someone, can't you at least put in the little effort it takes to be right?
For some reason, many media outlets can't, at least not when they've got new dictionary entries on the brain. The wrong dictionary is cited, the new entries are never read,** and the purpose of a dictionary is always misunderstood — which is to record common words, not exclude them.
In light of all the misinformation out there, let's calm down and look at what's actually happened, why it's happened, and what it means.
What has happened? The Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO), in one of their quarterly updates, added a set of new definitions to their online dictionary, including ones for emoji, cake pop, and, yes, twerk. The ODO "offers guidance on how the English language is used today, based on the Oxford English Corpus. Words can be removed when they are no longer used", as noted on their page explaining that the ODO and OED are not the same thing.
Nothing has "become a word", nothing has been "officially" recognized, nor "added to the language". One dictionary — one that focuses on contemporary usage — has added these words so that people who are unaware of them or unaware of how they're used (me, in cases like balayage) can find out from a more reliable source than Urban Dictionary. The words already existed and were in common enough use that a group of lexicographers decided that their definitions should be noted and made available.
Why did this happen? Angus Stevenson explains in the ODO announcement:
"New words, senses, and phrases are added to Oxford Dictionaries Online when we have gathered enough independent evidence from a range of sources to be confident that they have widespread currency in English. […] Each month, we add about 150 million words to our corpus database of English usage examples collected from sources around the world. We use this database to track and verify new and emerging words and senses on a daily basis."
These words were added for one reason: they are currently sufficiently common that the lexicographers at ODO feel it will be useful for people to be able to find out what these words mean and how they are used. This does not imply that the lexicographers like or dislike these words, nor that they want to see them used more or less. In the same way that a meteorologist is compelled to state the expected weather regardless of whether they'd prefer something else, so too are the lexicographers bound to the language we give them, like it or lump it.***
What does it mean? Well, let's start with what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that these words are in "the dictionary", because there is no "the" dictionary; there are a wide range of dictionaries, with different purposes and different criteria for adding entries. There is no central authority on English, so nothing's ever "officially" a word or not. It also doesn't mean that you have to like these words, nor that you have to use them or understand them. It doesn't mean that all future dictionaries will now be forced to include these words in perpetuity, regardless of the lifespan of the words.
English is the same today as was two days ago; it's just a little better documented. The ODO's update means that if you choose to use these words, other people will be able to find out what they mean, and if other people choose to use them, you will be able to find out what they mean. For the words that show staying power, more and more dictionaries will contain them, and those words that don't will disappear. (The OED does not remove words once they're in, but many dictionaries do, including the ODO at the center of the current dust-up.)
Lastly, if you're worried that defining selfie and supercut and their ilk makes our generation look silly, or self-involved, or obsessed with stupid Internet trifles, well, maybe we are. Change begins at home; stop clicking on cat videos and waging arguments through memes. Stop making Miley Cyrus the top news story in place of Syria and the NSA and things that matter. Talk about ideas instead of contrived distractions. Dictionaries are reflections of our time; one can't blame the mirror for an ugly face.
[A disclaimer: I am a linguist, not a lexicographer. If you are a lexicographer, we'd all love to hear any additional insights you have, and of course, please correct me if I've mischaracterized anything. If you are not a lexicographer but are interested in hearing more about lexicography, you can't go wrong with Ben Zimmer's or Kory Stamper's writings.]
*: This whole idea of "X is (not) a word" doesn't even make sense anyway — see discussions by Arnold Zwicky and Stan Carey. A word is a word if it is used with a consistent meaning by some group of language users. For linguists, we have different possible definitions of a word (orthographic words, phonological words, etc.), so the matter's actually pretty complicated — are idioms words, for instance?
**: In 2011, the actual OED did add a new entry for heart, v., based on its slang usage for "love". The OED's announcement noted the new form derived in part from the famous "I♥NY" logo, but nowhere in the entry does ♥ or <3 appear. That didn't stop Time, the Daily Mail, and many others from claiming that the OED had added its first graphical/symbolic entry and clucking their tongues as expected.
***: My impression is that lexicographers like more than they lump, as you can tell from the excitement of their update announcement.


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Now that I've seen more and read more about how people are using the new content and features in patch 5.4 for WoW; I'm impressed.
The standout items are the raid encounters and the proving grounds. Both I've not really stepped into much of either yet but both have created such an effective response from the players that they seem to be the aspects that will be remembered the most. The new raid benefits from the way the lore of the Destruction of the Vale cannot be ignored in the game. A straight up clever and direct call to players.


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COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS POST. There is a followup post here.
Another conference, another sexist comment in a keynote speech by a leader in the open source community. And September was going so well!
I just sent the following to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and leader of the Ubuntu Linux project.
Hi Mark,
I'm writing to you as a woman who has been involved in Linux and open source for more than 15 years, and who has been very involved in discussions around women in open source of late; I recently keynoted OSCON and Atlanta Linux Fest on the subject, and I also run the Geek Feminism wiki (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/) and blog (http://geekfeminism.org/).
I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it to LinuxCon this year; I hear it's a pretty good event. I've been listening with some interest to people's reports of what's going on there, and this afternoon I heard from multiple sources about your keynote, in which you referred to our work in Linux as being "hard to explain to girls".
I wanted to bring this up because I think what you said in that talk was pretty dismissive of the skill and dedication that many women have already brought to Linux, not only as designers and documenters (which I gather you mentioned in your talk) but as coders, release managers, sysadmins, and more — and of those who might be interested in the future.
2009 is shaping up to be a watershed year for women in open source. We have seen numerous high profile incidents where men have made remarks in conference presentations which have dismissed, marginalised, or upset women; we've seen an increase in discussion on blogs, mailing lists, and twitter/identica; many conferences have invited speakers (including myself) to keynote on the subject of inclusivity and diversity; and a number of efforts towards recruiting and supporting a more diverse open source community have been launched. In light of the attention the subject has been getting of late, your comment at LinuxCon seems oblivious at best, and only serves to further damage the Linux community's reputation.
I'd like to invite you to think about the message you're sending to women in the Linux community, and, if you didn't mean to convey the message that we're technical illiterates and hard to educate, consider apologising publicly.
Kirrily Robert
Just a note to new readers here at GF.org: we have a comment policy that you should read before commenting.
COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS POST. There is a followup post here.


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In the classic Rider image of the World Card:
A Skyclad Woman suspended in a field of stars,
dances with a veil facing away from us.
Like all the cards,
this refers to our perception of the universe rather
than the Universe itself.
Once we perceive beyond the veil of reality
we can begin to understand the mechanics of what it is we see.
The letter associated with this card is Tau:
the Material World.
On first examination we think we are seeing limitless space,
however that is but an illusion.
Ruled by Saturn,
a symbol of limitation,
this card represents all that we know:
information, knowledge, and hear-say;
limited by the constraints of time and space
and our ability to understand what we perceive.
So often when we look out at the universe we find our own image looking back,
reflections of ourselves in nature,
random patterns in the clouds and stars.
Each time we learn something
our universe appears to expand into a larger manifestation.
Central to the expression of The Universe is the Dance.
In the classic expression of the Tarot we find the image of the Goddess dancing in the stars.
Gaia represents the embodiment of all life on Earth
as a single form of consciousness dancing the ever-evolving modes of being.
Her art is Life itself,
her pallet are the millions of forms of life across the land and sea.
Within the Tarot this image is expressed with a human form
because of our tendency to perceive our world around us
by what it is we already know.
Rhythm is of Gaia;
each beat is a heartbeat,
a turn of the tide or the change of the seasons.
Music of all kinds is associated with The Universe Card:
Rhythm, tone, song, symphony.
Rhythm's manifestation permeates all things,
including ourselves.
Seeing the dance of creation is one thing,
to participate is quite another.
To make music is to participate in Gaia's expression;
Dancing is embodying her movements,
Her gestures.
To make the structured movements and sounds of our own written and choreographed art
is to participate in the rhythms of the seasons and tides.
To improvise is to participate with her Dance of Creation.
The Universe Amulet
presents a veiled Gaia,
immersed in stars and planets.
The letter Tau is set in the middle of the amulet,
representing "The World":
the material world covering her like a veil.
There is always a part of Her that is obscured:
the Unknown.
As our experience of the world around us expands,
so too does our awareness of it.
The more we perceive
the more we understand our limitation of perception.
The pendant is in the shape of the Fool Amulet:
an Egg;
distorted by our ever expanding awareness of what is beyond,
bulging where we find physical limitations.
The Universe Amulet
is for those that are explorers, scholars, students,
those who have taken on the quest of Life:
ever searching for meaning, the source, and themselves.
The Universe Amulet is for musicians, dancers, lovers of music and the arts;
those who push the envelope
unafraid of new experiences,
new ideas and a larger Universe.
The Universe Amulet may be used as a Talisman
or it may be used as a part of a Three dimensional Tarot Deck
The Tarot Casters
created and developed
by Kirk McLaren
of Amulets by Merlin
More Tarot Amulets may be seen on my Wearable Tarot Page


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Yesterday a radio station leaked the news that Bruno Mars was on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack and today it was confirmed by the official Twilight Twitter account.
"'It Will Rain' by @brunomars is the first song unveiled from the @BreakingDawnStk! http://bit.ly/r0UPB5 #ITWILLRAIN #BD1Stk"
Check out the Bruno Mars website. Where they state :
We're happy to announce exclusively on BrunoMars.com that Bruno's new song "It Will Rain" will be featured on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
"It Will Rain" will be available worldwide* exclusively on iTunes this Tuesday, September 27th.
*UK single will be available October 31st.
The soundtrack album will be available everywhere November 8th.
Come back to BrunoMars.com this Tuesday (9/27) to hear 'It Will Rain'!"


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- Casting sheet calls for an African-American actor, "Nice looking, friendly. Not too dark."
- Acura points blame at the casting agency
- The Super Bowl ad featured comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno
- "People in the business a long time deal with this every day," talent manager says
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Acura apologized Wednesday for a casting document that called for an African-American actor who was "not too dark" in the car company's Super Bowl ad.
The controversial casting call document, published Wednesday by the celebrity gossip site TMZ, "pulls back the curtain" on the widely known practice of casting based on skin tone in Hollywood, a longtime manager said.
TMZ reported that it got the audition posting from "an African-American actor who didn't fit the profile, and who's pissed."
The role was for an "African-American Car Dealer" who would appear in a car showroom scene with Jerry Seinfeld. Jay Leno also appeared in the ad.
The sheet's "role details" read: "Nice Looking, friendly. Not too dark. Will work with a MAJOR COMEDIAN."
Acura spokesman Gary Robinson told CNN that the company did not know about the casting description until the TMZ story was published.
"Any of the creative directions didn't come from Acura," Robins said. "They would've come from the casting agency."
Cathi Carlton Casting, the agency hired by Acura to choose actors, declined comment. An employee who answered the phone at the agency's Santa Monica, California, office said they would defer to Acura's apology.
"We apologize to anyone offended by the language on the casting sheet used in the selection of actors for one of our commercials," Acura said in a statement to CNN. "We sought to cast an African-American in a prominent role in the commercial, and we made our selection based on the fact that he was the most talented actor."
Acura said it was "taking appropriate measures to ensure that such language is not used again in association with any work performed on behalf of our brand."
Longtime Hollywood manager Roger Neal said he was not shocked that a casting director would choose based on skin tone.
"People in the business a long time deal with this every day," he said.
But Neal, who has looked at daily casting breakdowns for 31 years, said he was surprised the description was written on a casting document.
"I've never seen it in writing before," Neal said. "No one has been bold enough to put it in writing."
The publication of the casting sheet "pulls back the curtain" on the casting practice, he said.
Neal said he suspects it was an inexperienced casting assistant who wrote the description.
Casting agents have told him in the past that his clients were too dark, or "not black enough," Neal said.
A euphemism in Hollywood is to tell a rejected actor that the casting director "went a different direction" when their race cost them an acting job, Neal said.
SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, "immediately reached out to the casting office when the notice was brought to our attention so we could discuss the specific language used," it said in a statement sent to CNN Wednesday.
"Despite the intention behind it, the notice was clearly not as well stated as it could have been and this is an area in which SAG-AFTRA's equal employment opportunities and diversity staff can help," the union said.
CNN's Chris Dignam contributed to this report.


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We went to see David Hockney's latest show 'A Bigger Picture' at Royal Academy of Arts on a cold day in mid-winter. It has been a while since I last went to the countryside as it just seems to be dull and cold most of the time.
'Woldgate Woods, 21, 23 & 29 November 2006', 2006. Oil on 6 canvases. 182 x 366 cm. © David Hockney. Photo credit: Richard Schmidt, from RCA website.
This show has been widely anticipated and was said to be likely to be as popular as the National Gallery's exhibition for Leonardo De Vinci. How was it? Click here to find out >>


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It was a December 2009 Wall Street Journal article that ultimately inspired the Georgia lawyer known online as "Beowulf" to invent the trillion-dollar coin.
The article, "Miles for Nothing," detailed how clever travelers were buying commemorative coins from the U.S. Mint via credit cards that award frequent flier miles. The Mint would ship the coins for free and the travelers would deposit them at the bank, pay off their cards, and accumulate free miles.
Read More:Why Stealing a $1 Trillion Coin Isn't Worth the Price of a Getaway Van
How Big Would a Coin Made of $1 Trillion Worth of Platinum Be?
More than six months later, during a wonky online discussion about the debt ceiling, Beowulf thought of the article and, egged on by fellow monetary-system obsessives, came up with his own clever plan to exploit the powers of the U.S. Mint. His idea to issue a single trillion-dollar coin to the U.S. Treasury, thus letting it avoid borrowing and bypass the debt ceiling, is now much discussed among Washington elites, including at the White House, where a spokesman Wednesday wouldn't rule out the scheme.
It's been a remarkable journey. The path of the trillion-dollar coin, as Beowulf described it to Wired, began with a "silly question" in a "pointless ... online bull session" in the comments section of financier Warren Mosler's blog. Anonymous supporters helped spread the concept to the comments of other economics blogs and ultimately into posts on such sites. The idea soon attracted attention from more prominent liberal economists like James Galbraith and Paul Krugman, and then from writers like Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein. From there it was a short hop into the center mainstream. NBC's Chuck Todd hammered a White House spokesman about the coin possibility on Wednesday.
It's one thing for bloggers to help bring down a senator; it's quite another to re-engineer all federal spending.If the president uses such a coin to bypass intransigent Republicans who refuse to raise the debt ceiling, or even if he merely uses the possibility of such as leverage in negotiations, it will underline how ad-hoc online communities, like the anonymous international band of commenters to which Beowulf belonged, are increasingly able to move their ideas from the fringes into the middle of political debate. It's one thing for bloggers to help bring down a Mississippi senator or to embarrass a presidential frontrunner, as they have in years past; it's quite another for commenters to re-engineer the funding of the entire federal budget.
Their initial ambitions weren't nearly so grand, to hear Beowulf tell it. (Though Beowulf's real name is relatively easy to discover online, he spoke to Wired on the condition that we leave it out of this story.)
"It was really a pointless conversation," Beowulf says, referring to the discussion that unfolded underneath a post on Mosler's blog about government debt and the differences between the U.S. and Greek monetary systems. "I think it's funny something we were chatting about a few years ago is now in the news."
"It was almost a contingency plan, a silly question… What would happen if the government couldn't get the debt ceiling raised?"
Ever the lawyer, Beowulf dived into Title 31 of the U.S. Code: "Money and Finance." That Journal article was still rattling around in his head. He was also inspired by ideas from attorney-turned-finance-author Ellen Brown, who in her 2008 book Web of Debt quoted a 1980s-era director of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing as saying the government could solve its debt problems by printing large coins. He wasn't talking about circumventing the debt ceiling, which hadn't yet become a political football, but he may have been on to something.
A comment thread begun nine days after the original post focused on the relationship between the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury and on whether the Fed can legally help the Treasury circumvent the debt ceiling by, for example, overdrafting its account with the Fed.
But Beowulf added a new wrinkle: Why not seize upon the peculiar power of the U.S. Mint to issue platinum coins at the discretion of the Treasury Secretary, an unanticipated side effect of legislation intended to provide for a miniscule trade in commemorative coins?
Beowulf, a leading contributor to the blog Monetary Realism, explained his thinking to us this way: "If you go through the Federal Reserve, you're borrowing money. If you go through the Mint, you're making money." (He hastens to add that the latter is actually more expensive for the government at the moment, but it does have the virtue of getting around a debt ceiling.)
Some of Beowulf's buddies on Mosler's blog, whose prodding had helped him come up with the trillion dollar coin idea in the first place, then fanned out to promote the idea. For example, a commenter who goes by Ramanam – Beowulf believes he's from India – posted the idea within a week to Bill Mitcell's "billy blog" on Modern Monetary Theory. Another supporter, management consultant Joe Firestone, also wrote widely about the coin idea, crediting Beowulf.
"[Joe] and Cullen Roche were out there banging the drum for it," Beowulf says. "You say it was my idea, [but] it was a group of people – it was really a group thing… It's fascinating that I can have a bull session with people all over the country."
After one of Firestone's blog posts about the coin, Beowulf says, left-leaning economist James K. Galraith messaged Firestone about the idea, and shortly thereafter other prominent liberal economists began discussing the coin.
Interestingly, although the coin has been embraced by liberals as a useful political hack and rejected by Republicans as absurd and dangerous, the man who came up with it voted for Mitt Romney. Beowulf says he would have advised the 2012 Republican presidential candidate to use the same trick had he been elected president.
"We're not real political," he says of his circle of online pals, who he likens to players in a fantasy football league, but for the monetary system. "It's like 4chan says – we're just in it for the – what is it? LOLs? – lulz, lulz."
Though, when Beowulf stops laughing, he finds the whole notion absurd. "It's more a disappointment than anything," he says. "There's really no reason for a trillion dollar coin, it's kind of sad that it's gone this far."
It may have started as a game, but Beowulf and his pals are poised to inject an important new tactic into oversight of the government's monetary institutions.
The coin hack even surprised and impressed former U.S. Mint director Philip Diehl, who co-authored the law that enabled the platinum loophole in the first place.
"When I first heard about the idea to mint a trillion-dollar coin, I was very surprised," says Diehl. "But because I know that law backwards and forwards, I knew immediately that the guy who came up with the idea was right.
"It's an ingenious use of the law to avoid a ridiculous and irresponsible situation, in which the country would be driven to default."
(For more from Diehl, see Why Stealing a $1 Trillion Coin Isn't Worth the Price of a Getaway Van.)
Clever though it may be, the trillion-dollar coin may not be Beowulf's last monetary parlor trick. He described to us a borrowing scheme involving the Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which could potentially allow ready access to funds totaling "90 percent of infinity." Congress, you may have met your match.
With reporting by Michael Copeland and Sarah Mitroff


text:
Google has launched a new service called "Gmail SMS," a version of its Gmail email service, for users in Africa.
This text message-based version of Gmail, currently available in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, is designed for phones that cannot access the Internet and that have only the most basic features, according to the BBC.
Google SMS works by forwarding emails to phones in the form of a text message. Users can then directly reply to that email via text, with the correspondence then filed away in Gmail's conversation format.
Gmail SMS is part of Google's continued growth in Africa. The company has launched educational programs there and will be streaming action from the London Olympics on YouTube in multiple Africa countries.
Apple's Advertisement Punishment
Apple has been ordered to publish a notice in UK newspapers and on its British website telling people that Samsung didn't lift designs from the iPad, according to Bloomberg.
The notice, which Bloomberg equates to an advertisement for Samsung, will be posted on Apple's UK webpage for six months.
Earlier this month, a UK judge ruled that Samsung had not infringed upon Apple's iPad design. The judge noted that Samsung's Galaxy tablet couldn't be mistaken for an Apple because it wasn't as "cool."
A Samsung lawyer accused Apple of making comments after that ruling which suggested Samsung had copied the iPad design, according to Bloomberg.
Apple lost another UK case, this one against HTC, revolving around the iPhone's slide to unlock feature.
Judge Quits Kim Dotcom Case
The New Zealand judge overseeing the extradition case of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has stepped down following comments that suggested partiality, according to The New Zealand Herald.
The judge referred to the United States, which has made the extradition request for Dotcom, as the "enemy," according to the Herald. He made the comments at an Internet conference while discussing copyright issues.
Dotcom is wanted on copyright violation in the U.S., where he faces fines of up to US$500 million stemming from his wildly popular file-sharing site Megaupload.
The extradition case has been a mess from the get-go. Hearings were slated to begin this summer, but U.S. officials have pushed it back to March 2013. That delay came after a New Zealand court ruled that the U.S. has used invalid warrants to raid Dotcom's New Zealand mansion in January.
Microsoft Fine Could Reach $7 Billion
The tab for Microsoft's failure to follow a 2009 order from the European Union could result in a $7 billion fine, according to an expert cited in The Register.
This week, Joaquin Almunia, the European Commission competition commissioner, said that Microsoft hadn't carried out its commitment to give users the option of choosing various Web browsers. Microsoft agreed in 2009 to offer users different browser choices as a way to avoid a fine. The company, however, has failed to comply.
Microsoft followed Almunia's comments with a prompt apology, but according to The Register, that might not be enough to avoid steep fines. The European Commission, which is the executive branch of the EU, may impose a fine of up to 10 percent of Microsoft's turnover. That could translate to $7 billion.
The Register quotes an expert who says that the EC is unlikely to have much sympathy for Microsoft given the company's ability to monitor compliance and the fact that no company has ever broken such a commitment to the EU.
In June, the EU upheld a $1 billion fine against Microsoft.


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A revelation during a Michigan Senate committee hearing last week is drawing some new connections to the mechanism that enabled some 40,000 home-based day care owners to be categorized as public employees and unionized. There are indications that some of the so-called dots that need connecting may include the Granholm administration and Lt. Gov. John Cherry.
At the heart of this story is the Michigan Home-Based Child Care Council (MHBCCC), a state entity created as a result of an "interlocal agreement" (ILA) between the Michigan Department of Human Services and Flint-based Mott Community College. The MHBCCC then became the so-called "employer" against whom home day care providers were unionized by the AFSCME/UAW-bred Child Care Providers-Together Michigan (CCPTM). (The CCPTM does not have an operational website, but information can be found on the Michigan AFSCME website)
At an April 20 appropriations subcommittee hearing on human services, legislators posed questions to Lisa Brewer-Walraven, a high-ranking DHS representative who happens to serve as an MHBCCC board member. Brewer-Walraven was asked by committee chair Bill Hardiman, R-Kentwood, about her knowledge of the Council, its purported benefit to the state's day care owners and providers and the MHBCCC's relationship with Mott Community College, given the nature of the interlocal agreement.
Brewer-Walraven insisted the council's executive director attends early education meetings at Mott and regularly "interfaces" with Mott representatives. Hardiman said he had information quite to the contrary.
Hardiman probed further, asking who started talks about forming the interlocal agreement with Mott. Brewer-Walraven's answer, that the DHS approached Mott about the proposed ILA, was quite revealing.
This answer is mostly consistent with information obtained by the Mackinac Center. Early in our investigation into this case, we submitted written questions to Mott Community College. Our questions included one along the lines of that asked by Sen. Hardiman: Who approached whom in asking Mott to be a party to this interlocal agreement?
Here was the answer we received:
In late 2005, Lt. Gov. John Cherry phoned MCC President Dick Shaink to discuss impending federal welfare reform legislation that would have a large impact on child care needs in Michigan. Due to MCC's national reputation in Early Childhood Development and its track record of collaboration with various community partners, LTG Cherry asked if MCC would be willing to become involved in training child care providers. In December 2005 or January 2006, Dr. Shaink met with Dan Hodgins, (then) Coordinator of MCC's Early Childhood Development Program. Hodgins confirmed the situation described by Cherry and Shaink agreed to continue discussions.
It would seem logical that Lt. Gov. Cherry would have Mott Community College at top of mind, as he hails from Genesee County, also home to Mott. But that's not all. Mott provided further correspondence that confirms key figures from the Granholm administration were involved as well. Here is Mott's response to our question about the number of meetings Mott officials had with representatives from the state about Mott signing off on the interlocal agreement with the DHS:
According to notes, a conference call took place in March 2006 with Kelly Keenan, Legal Counsel to the Governor. Another conference call took place in April 2006 involving Musette Michael, Deputy Director, Legal Affairs and Financial integrity, Department of Human Services; Joseph O'Reilly, Legal Specialist, Legal Affairs and Financial integrity, Department of Human Services; Kelly Keenan, Legal Counsel to the Governor; Steve Liedel, Deputy Legal Counsel to the Governor; Brandon Hofmeister, Deputy Legal Counsel to the Governor; Gary Corbin, Consultant for MCC; Dick Shaink, President of MCC; and Judith Cawhorn, Executive Director, Grant Development, MCC. (Emphasis Added)
The Mackinac Center obtained a copy of an e-mail to Mott's president that names several of the above-mentioned parties who were to take place in a conference call regarding the MHBCCC formation, as well as questions Mott prepared for that call:
(Click images to enlarge)
I followed up with Lisa Brewer-Walraven to clarify her answer to Sen. Hardiman, that the DHS approached Mott about becoming party to the interlocal agreement. She verified her answer, but would not name names nor answer any other related questions, citing the pending "litigation" (referring to the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation's lawsuit against the DHS over the stealth unionization of home day care owners and providers.) At a town hall forum held at Mott last night, Brewer-Walraven's boss, DHS Director Ishmael Ahmed, also cited litigation as a reason for not answering MHBCCC-related questions.
If the DHS refuses to answer questions, perhaps a recent appointee to the Mott Community College Board of Trustees can help. Pam Faris was sworn in as trustee in February to replace a retiring member. If the name does not ring a bell, her husband's might. She is married to Lt. Gov. John Cherry, and according to the biography on the state's website, served on the board of the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC). The ECIC, incidentally, is one of the early childhood resources upon which the MHBCCC considers a resource for its work, and was also created via interlocal agreement. The ECIC executive committee, (of which Faris was a member) included discussion of the MHBCCC and the child care providers' union in a 2008 meeting:
"Other discussion points included training for service groups, quality rating systems, licensing requirements, the Michigan Home-Based Child Care Council and new home-based providers' union, Child Care Providers Together Michigan, and the need for the Executive Committee to be more engaged with policymakers throughout the state."
These are just a few connections that seem to point to the Michigan Home-Based Child Care Council. As these dots become clearer, and the connections stronger, the questions will no doubt become tougher to avoid.
Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.
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They sent me this press release:
Win Socks for Life! Well the yarn, you're on your own after that.
(Vancouver, BC) "To be fair, it's actually only a 25 year supply, so we can only hope the winner dies early to keep me an honest woman." - Nikki Smith, VP YarnCanada.ca
After extensive research YarnCanada.ca discovered two key issues which continue to plague the world which we'd like to help bring to an end.
- Some people have hobbies other than knitting (idiots)
- Other (marginally insane) people buy socks at Costco
Don't want to use all the yarn to make socks? That's okay, no hard feelings.
Yes, some marriages may end as the winner ignores her husband in a multi-year knitting frenzy. But that's simply a risk we must take. On the other hand, maybe getting non-terrible socks for Christmas could bring families closer together.
The prize will go to whomever can show how their life will most be changed by winning and what you will do with the prize.
Anything could happen:
"I'll use the yarn to start a knitting business on Etsy!" - Beth C, Winnipeg
"My friends always get together to watch The Bachelor, but goodness it's boring, now I'll have something to do to keep me distracted." - Janet G, Toronto
"Honestly I have no self control. With all that yarn I'll knit non-stop, stay up for days and miss work. I'll get fired, not be able to pay rent and get kicked out of my apartment. But… I'd have so many socks!" - Samantha T, Vancouver
"I'll knit them all up as fast as I can and give them to charity." – Nicole
Whatever the reason, let us know why knitting is important to you and how a lifetime supply of sock yarn would change your life.
Enter to Win a Lifetime Supply of Socks


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It's time, once again, for the Secret Recipe Club! This month my secret blog assignment was Cindy from Everyday Insanity. Cindy had a dream of an Easy Bake Oven as a little girl, and hey – so did I! (Okay, hands up if you DIDN'T want an Easy Bake Oven. No takers? Yah, I thought so.) Anyway, Cindy has been cooking and baking up a storm ever since, and she has lots of recipes on her blog to show for it.
Now, typically, in the Secret Recipe Club, I've taken a recipe and modified it – usually a lot – to fit my food needs and preferences. This month, I was shooting for a gentler form of modification – slight tweaks instead of whole recipe overhauls.
That cut out a lot of Cindy's recipes. As delicious as Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies or Chocolate Zucchini Bread might be, we're talking major overhaul for the GFDF crowd. There were some recipes, though, that I could have made without tweaking at all – like this Mango Salsa or this Pineapple Salsa. Both of those recipes are entirely raw and filled with wonderful fruits and veggies. Sadly, I'm not currently eating tortilla chips. And, salsa without chips might have just been a bit too torturous.
So, I settled on a happy medium recipe – Crunchy Granola. The kiddo has been asking for some anyway. A few minor tweaks and I had a delicious gluten-free vegan breakfast option for the kiddo.
Well, I DID have one. It's gone now.
She's right about that making a double batch thing. Do it. You'll thank me later.
Crunchy Granola
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup almond oil (You could use vegetable, like in the original – but I like the flavor of almond oil.)
3/4 teaspoon salt (I'd reduce the salt next time – probably only 1/2 t.)
3 1/2 cups gluten-free old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup slivered or chopped almonds (I used chopped.)
3/4 cup raw cashews
3/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
Preheat oven to 250°. In a large bowl whisk the maple syrup, oil & salt together. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well to coat. Spread on 2 baking sheets. Bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Turn off the oven and let sit until the golden brown and crispy. (Mine sat for probably another half hour.)
See what everyone else has done for this month's Secret Recipe Club!
If that's not enough recipes for you, you can find more Slightly Indulgent recipes at Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.


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Written by Sara Egan
When we originally scheduled visits to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for the classes at a Boston high school in our School Partnership Program, we didn't consider the date of the presidential election as a factor. My colleagues and I didn't purposefully plan for the 10th grade students, too young to vote but old enough to be politically aware, to come to this historic institution in the two days following the surprising result. It wasn't our intention that the 12th graders would come the following week, having had time to begin to process the world in which we awoke on November 9, 2016. But that's exactly what happened.
Our partnership with these students and their teachers is based on our commitment to respond to where they are and what they need from us to scaffold their development as critical thinkers and engaged museum-goers. We've built relationships and cultivated trust with this school over 5 years, coming to understand what they grapple with individually and as a community. At this school, many of the students are Black, Muslim, and/or their families are immigrants. When they come to the Museum, they bring their whole selves to each discussion. So when we found ourselves on the eve of the election concluding a long, polarizing campaign, we recommitted ourselves to putting the students at the center and modified our plan for their visits.
We designed an experience for students to engage with the Gardner Museum in a variety of ways, understanding that everyone processes turmoil differently. First, we welcomed them back to the Museum and gave them a sense of what to expect from the visit. Then we used our temporary exhibition, Beyond Words: Italian Renaissance Books, as a starting point. One theme of this exhibition is the spread of literacy and access to information during the Renaissance, highlighting how society valued knowledge of history, literature and rhetoric during that time. The students took as much time as they needed to explore the exhibition on their own, looking closely with their friends and finding moments of interest and beauty. As a group we discussed the ideas that they discovered in the objects and in the interpretive materials, huddling together over an illuminated choir book or a scientific rendering of marine creatures. Then we honed in on one artwork, a painting of St. Jerome in which they found further examples of the importance of scholarly work and humanistic ideals. This first half of their visit hewed closely to our initial plan, introducing the students to the exhibition while connecting it to their prior experiences at the Museum.
The major adaption was that the rest of the visit became structured time for the students to reflect, process, and express themselves. Rather than going to another gallery or looking at another artwork, we brought the students to the courtyard in the center of the historic collection. We handed each student a sketchbook and a pencil, invited them to sit on the stone benches facing the courtyard, and introduced a prompt tying together the objects they'd been exploring, the Museum created by Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the students' own lives:
Together we've been looking at these old books, considering how the artists used text and illustration, and the impact the books had on society. Now you'll get to design your own book. You can write a story, a poem or a song, draw something you see here or something you imagine, or just take deep breaths and process. If you find it helpful to think of a prompt, you might consider this: When Isabella Stewart Gardner made this museum she said that what the country needed most was art. What do you think our country needs most right now?
It was moving to see how students brought their whole selves to this activity. The 10th grade classes that came on November 8 and 9 spent much of the time asking us and their History teacher questions about the Electoral College, and voicing their fears for what would happen to their families who are undocumented immigrants. Some drew campaign symbols and slogans, some wrote about stamping out hate and encouraging love. The 12th grade students who visited on November 16 and 17 appreciated the escapism offered by the Courtyard. They spoke about the chance to sit quietly in a beautiful space that seems to be a world apart from Boston, a time apart from 2016.
During all of these classes the other museum educators, classroom teachers, and I tried to spend time with each student to answer their questions and reiterate that we would stand with them and their loved ones. Some students expressed gratitude for the opportunity to center themselves and consider their thoughts and feelings in their own way, and a growing awareness that we, the Gardner Museum educators who they've come to know since 9th grade, intentionally created that space out of our deep concern and caring for them. By the end of the visit, after about 30 minutes of reflection and processing, the mood had shifted to one of hope and mutual support.
Since the election, many of us have felt the urgency of action. This set of class visits to the Gardner Museum was a small, immediate action, but one that ripples outward. These students and teachers' ideas about how to relate to a museum (even a seemingly elite, historic one like the Gardner) might be forever transformed by the half hour they spent nurturing themselves and each other. Their mental and emotional states also changed, and we can imagine that impact was felt in all of the other interactions they had that day. As museum educators, we have the ability to create this space for our visitors – we have the flexibility to respond to our visitors and we have the objects and environments that remind them of the beauty of our shared humanity.
I'll leave you with a poem written in the Gardner's courtyard by Jayne Irvy Veillard, a 12th grade student at the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers:
By Jayne Irvy Veillard
We're struggling
Living in a world where there's no peace
Living in a world where cries are silenced
Living with the pain among us.
What our world needs is
Why can't we love?
What's so hard about loving your neighbor as yourself?
Do you not love who YOU are?
Why can't there be peace?
Why does there have to be war?
What's so hard about finding peace?
Look into your heart
Is it Black?
The color your heart bleeds
Does it bleed Black?
Black portrayed as ugly and slavery
Black the color of gun shots and cruelty
Black the hatred set up for men
Black, mothers and children crying for help
Look into your heart
Is it White?
Does it bleed white?
White the color of peace and love
White purity and pure
White sinless
White privileged and power
What's the difference?
Why separate these two colors?
Grey the color of this lead
Grey the unity of black and white
Grey the sound of ones holding hands
Grey we shall overcome aye?
Grey The Middle Ground
What our word needs is Grey!
We need
The Unity
The Power
The Love
No More Struggling
No More Pain
No More Poor
Just more love
All together
One for all
What our world needs is Grey
The happiness of Grey
That's what our world needs
* * * * *
About the Author
SARA EGAN is School Partnerships Manager at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Sara was recently named the Massachusetts Art Education Association's 2017 Museum Art Educator of the Year. She teaches preK-12th grade students in the Museum and the classroom using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), trains and coaches teachers in VTS, and conducts research on the impact of the Gardner's School Partnership Program. Sara also manages the Gardner Museum's paid Teens Behind the Scenes program, and is an adjunct professor of art at Simmons College. She has previously worked at the Andy Warhol Museum and Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. Sara holds a BA from Vassar College and a Masters in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Header Photo: A 10th grade student from Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's courtyard. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Photograph by Billie Weiss.


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By: Tim Brown
Any respectful president at this point would basically be in a hover mode and simply helping a new administration transition, but not the Marxist Obama administration. No, they are still hard a work selling America out to our enemies. The latest sellout is ironic because it has been the Obama administration pushing the narrative of Russia hacking US elections. Now, the administration has joined five other world powers in approving the transfer of a large shipment of uranium from Russia to Iran.
The Associate Press reports:
Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant, diplomats say, in a move approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact.
Two senior diplomats said the transfer recently approved by the U.S. and five other world powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran foresees delivery of 116 metric tons (nearly 130 tons) of natural uranium.
U.N. Security Council approval is needed but a formality, considering five of those powers are permanent Security Council members, they said.
The transfer is to come under the surveillance of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency and allegedly be accountable to that agency for 25 years.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the transfers are "subject to the careful monitoring and inspections that are included in the deal to ensure that Iran is living up to the commitments that they made."
While Tehran has not said what it plans to do with the uranium, State Department spokesman John Kirby claims that natural uranium "cannot be used… for a weapon" in its original form.
Should Tehran decide to store the uranium, which amounts are very significant considering some of the possible uses once certain limits on Tehran's nuclear activities begin to expire within ten years.
The AP went on to report, "David Albright, whose Institute of Science and International Security often briefs U.S. lawmakers on Iran's nuclear program, says the shipment could be enriched to enough weapons-grade uranium for more than 10 simple nuclear bombs, 'depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon.'"
Is anyone buying that Iran won't try to develop a nuke even if just to defy the US and the world?
For those concerned about Israel, understand that the tiny nation has put a whipping on every attempt made against it to destroy it since its inception. In September 2016, it was reported that a 2015 email revealed that former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Israel has 200 nukes of their own.
"Iranians can't use one if they finally make one," Powell wrote to Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds, a hedge-fund founder who serves on the board of the Colin L. Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at the City College of New York. "The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands."
Frankly, for Tehran to use a nuke against Israel or the US would be suicidal, but we are familiar with Islamic jihadists who will commit suicide to accomplish jihad. However, not many of their high ranking officials and leaders are ready to engage in an operation that will turn them into dust. I'm all for countries being able to defend themselves, but I find the irony of an administration blaming Russia for election hacking and then turning around and approving a uranium shipment to Iran so hypocritical that you just can't make it up.
One question I do have though is, where is this uranium coming from? Is it coming directly from Russia or is this the Clintons the uranium have been selling Russia out from under the land of America's ranchers? By the way, the Clintons made millions on the deal.
Political prisoner Pete Santilli exposed the fact that the central government's illegal land grabs are all about uranium. Don't think that Bundy Ranch and the Oregon protests were all about nothing! They were about federal tyranny and tied to that is arming our enemies. Somehow, I have to wonder if Lindsey Graham and John McCain are involved in this too.


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Drone Policy at a Glance
President Obama defended the use of drone attacks as an important part of the U.S. counterterrorism policy on Thursday but signed new presidential policy guidelines to spell out for Congress and the public the standards that the United States will use before carrying out drone attacks.
President Obama defended the use of drone attacks as an important part of the U.S. counterterrorism policy on Thursday but signed new presidential policy guidelines to spell out for Congress and the public the standards that the United States will use before carrying out drone attacks.
The guidelines include not using strikes when the targeted people can be captured either by the United States or a foreign government, relying on drones only when the target poses an imminent threat, and establishing standards for notifying members of Congress.
A look at the new policy:
Preference for Capture
The policy is to refrain from using lethal force "when it is feasible to capture a terrorist suspect" because the capture of a potential terrorist offers the opportunity to gather intelligence and disrupt terrorist plots. Operations to capture a terrorist suspect can only be conducted against those who may lawfully be captured by the United States and "only when the operation can be conducted in accordance with applicable law."
Lethal force will only be used to prevent or stop attacks against Americans. There must be a legal basis for using lethal force, and the U.S. will
only use lethal force against a target that poses "a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons."
U.S Government Coordination and Review
The decisions to capture or use force against individual terrorist suspects outside the United States and areas of active hostilities are made at the most senior levels of the federal government. Senior national security officials will consider
proposals to ensure that the administration's policy standards are met, and attorneys will review and determine the legality of the proposals.
The decisions will be informed by a "broad analysis" of the target's role in plots threatening Americans, the intelligence information the individual could provide, and the potential impact on ongoing terrorism plotting.
American Targets
If the U.S. considers conducting an operation against a terrorist suspect who is identified as an American, the Justice Department will perform an additional legal analysis to ensure the action is consistent with the Constitution and the laws of the
United States.
Reservation of Authority
These new standards and procedures do not limit the president's authority to take action in extraordinary circumstances when doing so "is both lawful and necessary to protect the United States or its allies."
Congressional Notification
Appropriate members of Congress will be updated regularly on the identities of any individuals against whom lethal force has been approved. Appropriate committees will be notified whenever a counterterrorism operation covered by these standards and procedures has been conducted.
SOURCE: The White HouseEndText