If I Put It Down, It Gets Extremely Complicated

I could have sworn I heard this rant somewhere in the halls of BLS during the last two weeks, but I think it's a Tom Wolfe original.

From pg. 558 of I Am Charlotte Simmons...

U.S. News & World Report--what a stupid joke! Here is this third-rate news weekly, aimed at businessmen who don't like to read, trying desperately to move up in the race but forever swallowing the dust of Time and Newsweek, and some character dreams up a circulation gimmick: Let's rank the colleges. Let's stir up a fuss. Pretty soon all of American higher education is jumping through hoops to meet the standards of the marketing department of a miserable, low-brow magazine out of Washington, D.C.! Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Dupont (the fictional college setting for the novel)--all jumped through the hoop at the crack of the U.S. News whip!

Does U.S. News rate you according to how many of the applicants you offer places to actually enroll in your college and not another? Then let's lock in as many as we can through early admissions contracts. Does U.S. News want to know your college's SAT average? We'll give it to them, but we will be "realistic" and not count "special cases"...such as athletes.
Tom Wolfe, you may be guilty of stealing Abraham Lincoln's all-white suit, but you, sir, have your finger on the pulse of the college rankings debate at the beginning of the 21st century.

A Good Place to Get Some Thinking Done

My friends, the global economy is still fighting to regain its balance after a severe shock, Somali pirates are still frequently attacking vessels in the Indian Ocean, and the world is just coming down off of the high generated by a severe over-reaction to the threat of the swine flu, but all of those problems are simply too small for the German judicial system.

Here's what the German Constitutional Court was up to on Tuesday...

Germany is renowned for fighting inflation, but the battle extends beyond money and into the realm of names. In a split decision on Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld a ban on married people combining already-hyphenated names, forbidding last names of three parts or more.

Somewhere, a recently injured/retired Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutumbo is surely disheartened by this decision and what it means for the "Long Surname" rights movement worldwide.
He was unavailable for comment at the time we went to press.

Current Reading

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

Jealousy Has Got No Use For Me

Congratulations to Ms. Nina Patterson for correctly naming "Down South" by Tom Petty as the Song of the Day for both Sunday and Monday. Also, it's worth noting that Nina knew the song well enough to point out that I added an extra "all" in the title to yesterday's post that is not there in the actual lyrics. The lesson as always, I'm an idiot.

In reaction to today's most startling news, please gather your things and move in an orderly manner to the nearest fall-out shelter: The colossus of all things caffeine, the behemoth of all baristas, the leviathan of lattes, Starbucks, is tightening its collective belt and closing 600 stores nationwide.

In other news, for the next few days I'm headed up to Nashville to visit some friends who currently reside in the 615. Feel free to drop a line in the comment section regarding Nashville landmarks and must-see locations.

Current Reading
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

I'll Bring Home the Turkey If You'll Bring Home the Bacon

Future Reading

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: A Novel by Michael Chabon
2. Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell by Karen DeYoung
3. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero by Leigh Montville
4. War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam
5. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
6. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe