I’m amazed by the way one word can fire off a whole line of thought. This is a good one: quiddity. The word “quiddity†(Latin quidditas) is one way to denote the idea of the real nature or essence of a thing, the very thing that makes it what it is. Literally, it translates as “whatness” or “what it is.” That sounds very individualistic to an American ear, and “what is it” sounds like it might be referring to the…
I’ve always been fascinated by words and phrases, and how we manage to employ textures of meaning, even when we don’t know the etymologies. The Wired blog has a great post by John Scott Lewinski that called my attention to a new book called A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare. We learn, for instance, that we use language in chunks of words–as one linguist put it, “we know words by the company that they keep.” For instance, the…
I give up. I can’t get the song “Buzzer” out of my head. It’s been days now, and despite my attempts to put it out of my mind it’s affecting me at a deep emotional level. It’s not unusual for me to have a song running through my head now and again, but this one is a little different. I’m getting noodged (smile-out) to write about it, and it’s clear that I’m going to be haunted by this song until…
Presidential candidate and all-around fantastic guy John Edwards has joined MyBlogLog, and VirusHead is the very blog community that he has joined! Thank you! I sure would like to see him win the Presidency. Download The Plan to Build One America (80 pp., pdf) to see some of the reasons why I am supporting John Edwards. Here is Edwards’ response to the State of the Union Address last night: The president tonight renewed his call for an economic recovery plan….
I hope that you’ve heard about the study from The Center for Public Integrity in which they collected 935 false statements by eight top administration officials in the period before the March 18, 2003 invasion of Iraq. We have the searchable database now. Provable, documented lies that can’t disappear or be denied. Iraq: The War Card – Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War argues that following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully…
Some recent media items on Jehovah’s Witnesses: Surviving a JW Sadist Alloma Gilbert has published an article – an excerpt from her upcoming book Deliver Me From Evil (March 2008) – on how she survived being starved, beaten and tortured by her Jehovah’s Witness foster mother Eunice Spry (see also the post Sadistic Foster Mom a Devout Jehovah’s Witness). Ten years later, in court, I would hold one of the sticks she routinely used to thrust down our throats and…