When I first met Bruiser, he had a nasty gash on his forehead, but I could tell from looking at him that the other squirrel probably got the worst of it. Squirrels are gentle creatures--except when they are eating. They can get into some pretty ugly conflicts when there is food involved.
Mark Liberman discusses how hard it is to count a language's active vocabulary:
Consider the counting problem with respect to the text of your question. Your note uses the strings language, languages, language's. The word-count tool in MS Word will (sensibly enough) count each of these as one "word". But how many different vocabulary items -- word types -- are they? Are these three items, just as written? Or should we count the noun language plus the plural marker -s and the possessive 's? Or should we just count one item language, which happens to occur in three forms?
Your question also includes the strings am, are, be, is, was -- are these five distinct vocabulary items, or five forms of the one verb be? How about the strings weeks, weekly, day, daily? Is weekly the same vocabulary item as an adjective ("on a weekly basis") and an adverb ("published weekly")? If we analyze weekly as week + -ly and significantly as significant + -ly, are those (sometimes or always) the same -ly?
What about the noun use (in "daily use") and the participle used ("used on a daily basis"). Are those different words, or different forms of the same word? Is the participle used the same item, as a whole or in parts, as the preterite used?
Should we unpack 90% as "ninety percent" (two words) or "ninety per cent" (three words)? And is percentage a completely different vocabulary item, or is it percent (or per + cent) + -age?
Depending on the answers to these five easy questions about 17 character strings, we might count as many as 18 vocabulary items or as few as 10. And as we scan more text, this spread will grow, without any obvious bounds.
The whole article is worth a look.
Paul Krugman writes about the Bush administration's latest example of mendacity:
Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.
You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration’s new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it’s all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive.
The financial events of the last seven months, and especially the past few weeks, have convinced all but a few diehards that the U.S. financial system needs major reform. Otherwise, we’ll lurch from crisis to crisis — and the crises will get bigger and bigger.
The rescue of Bear Stearns, in particular, was a paradigm-changing event.
Traditional, deposit-taking banks have been regulated since the 1930s, because the experience of the Great Depression showed how bank failures can threaten the whole economy. Supposedly, however, “non-depository” institutions like Bear didn’t have to be regulated, because “market discipline” would ensure that they were run responsibly.
When push came to shove, however, the Federal Reserve didn’t dare let market discipline run its course. Instead, it rushed to Bear’s rescue, risking billions of taxpayer dollars, because it feared that the collapse of a major financial institution would endanger the financial system as a whole.
And if financial players like Bear are going to receive the kind of rescue previously limited to deposit-taking banks, the implication seems obvious: they should be regulated like banks, too.
The Bush administration, however, has spent the last seven years trying to do away with government oversight of the financial industry. In fact, the new plan was originally conceived of as “promoting a competitive financial services sector leading the world and supporting continued economic innovation.” That’s banker-speak for getting rid of regulations that annoy big financial operators.
To reverse course now, and seek expanded regulation, the administration would have to back down on its free-market ideology — and it would also have to face up to the fact that it was wrong. And this administration never, ever, admits that it made a mistake.
Thus, in a draft of a speech to be delivered on Monday, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, declares, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”
And sure enough, according to the executive summary of the new administration plan, regulation will be limited to institutions that receive explicit federal guarantees — that is, institutions that are already regulated, and have not been the source of today’s problems. As for the rest, it blithely declares that “market discipline is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”
The administration, then, has learned nothing from the current crisis. Yet it needs, as a political matter, to pretend to be doing something.
So the Treasury has, with great fanfare, announced — you know what’s coming — its support for a rearrangement of the boxes on the org chart. OCC, OTS, and CFTC are out; PFRA and CBRA are in. Whatever.
Will rearranging these boxes make any difference? I’ve been disappointed to see some news outlets report as fact the administration’s cover story — the claim that lack of coordination among regulatory agencies was an important factor in our current problems.
Was sitting in the basement, feeding the squirrels, when I noticed the squirrels scatter. Going to the door, I saw the raccoon. A lame raccoon. It had some sort of injury to its left rear leg, so it moved slowly. Thus, I was able to get close enough to snap some photos.
Another repost from my old blog...
In Craig Zadan's book Sondheim & Co., Stephen Sondheim is quoted on the subject of the music in Sunday in the Park with George:
The way the score was constructed was based on the relationship of the two central characters. Theirs is a continuous and continuing love song that isn't completed until the end of the show. In the song "Sunday in the Park with George", Dot, in one section, begins a lyrical theme, which is her affection and her love for George. This is picked up later in "Color and Light", and it develops and starts to reach a climax, and just at that point, they break off and they speak.
Then in "We Do Not Belong Together" it's picked up and further developed as if it's almost where they left off, and ends with an unrhymed line where she sings, "I have to move on." And when their love is finally consummated, which is the end of the second act, it all comes together and becomes a completed song in "Move On". "Move On" is a combination of all the themes involving their relationship, including every harmony and every accompaniment; it's where everything culminates. Only it's over a period of four major scenes covering a hundred years. It's one way of threading the theme through time.
I thought it would be fun to edit those parts together. I ran into some problems because of the Youtube limit of ten minutes, so some material that I would have liked to include is cut, but here is the Love Music of George and Dot.
Mark Crislip says some interesting things about death and dying.
Phil Plait has some sensible things to say about some of the nutsoid lunatics that appear far too regularly on the mainstream media.
If it's 2008 that means it's time for another Gypsy revival. And why not? It's only been five years since the last revival.
Naturally Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents were present.
As was Angela Lansbury, who played Momma Rose in the 1974 revival, and thus became the Best Momma Rose of Them All!
More coverage of the opening night can be found at TheaterMania.
Adding to my last post, if we had more people in the news media capable of critical thinking and more interested in reporting on substantive topics rather than trivia like haircuts, then the election coverage would focus more on discussions of the policy differences between the candidates.
And our democracy would be better...
Just saying...
Ezra Klein has a post alleging that it was Obama's weak health care plan that convinced John Edwards not to endorse Obama.
Quoting John Heilemann:
Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.
It's because of his poor health care plan and some of his other actions, that make him sound more like a Republican than a Democrat, that I just can't get enthusiastic about Obama as a candidate.
OTOH, I was very impressed with his speech on racism. That's why my strong preference is still to see a Clinton/Obama ticket. Clinton is just far more impressive on an array of issues and is far better informed. And that's why Clinton should not drop out of the race, despite what a bunch of looney pundits are saying.
And Obama's endorsements from people like Bill Richardson and the junior senator from Pennsylvania actually reinforce my opinions.
Reposting this from the old blog...
When James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim first discussed a collaboration on a musical, they wanted to do some sort of theme and variation. The show that resulted, Sunday in the Park with George, uses that concept both textually and musically.
But I doubt that most viewers get many of the connections, so I thought it would be fun to put together a video that highlights some, but by no means all, of the variations on a theme. In particular, I left out most of the love music, since I finished a separate video of that yesterday. (See previous blog post.)
Also, it's worth pointing out that I didn't find all these connections by myself. I relied on Mark Eden Horowitz's excellent Sondheim on Music and Stephen Banfield's somewhat more specialized Sondheim's Broadway Musicals for ideas, although I did come up with a few of my own.
Note that I saved the best for last. As Sondheim describes it in the Horowitz book, even Mandy Patinkin, who had been singing the two songs for a year and a half, didn't realize that X and Y were the same melody. I'll leave the discovery of those two songs as a, one hopes pleasant, exercise for the viewer.
One more word about Horowitz's Sondheim on Music; it's a fascinating and quite accessible interview with Sondheim. Although it's filled with musical examples, one doesn't need to be a music expert to enjoy it. For example, Sondheim's description (too long to quote here) about Seurat's work habits and the true nature of the Grande Jatte painting should be must reading.
