Point of personal
privilege: HAPPY 91st birthday,
Lew! (Born 12/12/12!)
HOW DISTANT SEEMS THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Clipped by the estimable Alan from the December 2 New York Times:
Leonid S. Mayevsky, a Communist member of the current Parliament,
publicly criticized the [Communist] party at a news conference last month, saying that 28 percent of its candidates were millionaires.
"Is this the party of the people or of the millionaires?" he asked. He was promptly expelled from the party.
REAGAN AND AIDS
Gary Konecky: “From
Reports from the Holocaust, the Making of an AIDS Activist by Larry
Kramer, I learn that Reagan's
first speech on AIDS was April 27, 1987 (page 145). At the time of his speech, the AIDS epidemic
was six years old and had killed 20,798 in the USA (page 150). Reagan admitted to not reading the report on
AIDS that he asked Dr. Koop to prepare for him (page 152) and did not talk to
his Surgeon General about AIDS (also page 152).”
Bob Price: “Actually,
you are incorrect. Ronald Reagan set up
a council to handle the AIDS crisis and said ‘AIDS is the #1 public health concern in this country’ in 1984. Compare Patty Davis'
description
of his behavior in Time to that in the movie [that CBS pulled from the schedule and
moved to Showtime]."
TRANSFERRING
VIDEOTAPES TO DVDS
Bob
Price: “Probably the easiest approach
is to buy a DVD recorder, e.g. the Phillips DVDR75, and hook it up to your
videotape recorder. This works very well, is easy, and I wish someone had
told me this before I started out. For
you see, I started out by trying to do it on my computer. I bought a TV
card, a very large hard drive, and a DVD burner. With software, that cost
about as much as the DVD recorder, and it's much
harder to do it that way.”
MADAM, I’M TOMLIN
Steve Tomlin writes: “I know you've been waiting for it, so here's
my holiday palindrome (remember last year's?),
this time with an international flavor:
Yay! Tet! Yay .
“Okay, that was the
simple and straightforward one. [Although please notice
that even the exclamation marks work. – A.T.] Too easy?
Here's a more convoluted one:
The Iranian cleric in
charge of religious festivities when presented with
the personal demands of the chosen entertainer and,
further, upon the offering of inappropriate libations on this sacred occasion,
declares:
YANNI GETS AT NO DAM HARP! RAHMADON!
TASTE GIN? NAY!
“Alright,
a bit of a stretch, and Rahmadon isn't really the ‘Muslim
Christmas’ (there’s an oxymoron for you) so it's not strictly seasonal, and I
spelled ‘damn’ wrong [I thought it was some kind of sheep harp – A.T.], and my
spelling of Rahmadon can be debated, yadda, yadda. So go back to
the first one. Or try your hand
at it for Pete's sake. Your readers have
two weeks to do better.”
F O, No.