Loose ends …

As I try to sweep up the debris of a semester that's gone way too fast, a few loose ends …

(1) The Rothenberg Report has a piece on the meteoric rise of Mike Huckabee in the Republican field, with this:

In a sense, Huckabee is the second coming of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who now seems about as relevant as a typewriter at a bloggers’ convention.

Wow, political writing with a fresh yet relevant image. Go, Stuart R.! Googling the exact string typewriter at a bloggers’ convention, I find only a set of quotes of the Rothenberg piece, including this brilliant quip at Eunomia:

That Seems Unfair To The Typewriter
A typewriter at a bloggers’ convention would at least have the advantage of being unusual and something of a curiosity. Some of the younger bloggers may have never seen one outside of a museum. I’m afraid Fred Thompson is no longer that interesting.

(2) Jack White, of the White Stripes, just now on NPR was talking about "all those words that start with r" that he doesn't like: retro, recreate, etc. Come'on, dude, let's do some morphological analysis here … they start with re-, of course.

(3) In a more consequential piece, NPR just reported that "Monkeys Estimate as Well as Humans", at least two monkeys compared to a set of Duke University undergrads. There may be blogging gold in the report, but no time to mine it now ... .

(4) John Morgridge (once CEO of Cisco) and his wife Tashia have donated 175 million dollars to help mostly low-income Wisconsin kids attend public universities and colleges in the state. We shouldn't have to rely on gifts for this, but you have to appreciate these folks stepping up like this.

(5) My post from yesterday afternoon worked its magic … the National Weather Service is calling for a high of 32º F today … and sunny. That'll help clear the streets.

Image from here.