Watch your step!
I was out and about in Tipton this evening when I came across this unusual sight: A house with a second-story door to … nowhere. Here’s hoping they keep it locked on the inside!
Wait, wait! Carl and Peter in Legos
Photo: Lego Carl Kasell & Peter Sagal. Built by @KakaLeta. Via @nprfreshair on npr.tumblr.com/post/168342118… http://t.co/b8vQbvCl—
NPR News (@nprnews) February 01, 2012
The indignity of Ronald McDonald
Those of you who live in the Iowa City area may remember the amazing chainsaw sculpture of Ronald McDonald that used to stand outside the McDonald’s restaurant on 1st Avenue in Coralville. It was truly striking because he was carved out of the top of a tree trunk that was still planted in the ground just outside the northside entrance:
Ronald, in better days
In 2010, the 1st Avenue McDonald’s was essentially rebuilt from the ground up, and it’s a sparkly, shiny oasis of fast food goodness now. Why, the local media even touted its embrace of green technology and its cutting-edge decor. But lost in all of that progress was old Ronald. I noticed he was no longer outside the new restaurant, but I figured he had been removed and put on display elsewhere; perhaps cut down and moved inside as a unique marker of the Coralville location?
Sadly, that did not happen. In fact, I found Ronald yesterday, and … well, it’s not pretty. Brace yourselves:
How sad is that? A one-of-a-kind piece of art that never failed to provoke comments from adults and excitement from little kids, destroyed and left to rot in an empty lot where a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise used to be. OK, so it’s not quite paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, but still. It’s a pity no one was able to save Ronald from his heartless Coralville overlords. But hey, enjoy those Happy Meals, kids!
Who belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Joe Posnanski, one of the most talented and thoughtful sportswriters in the game today, has a really interesting take about the Baseball Hall of Fame on his Sports Illustrated blog, Curiously Long Posts. Posnanski tackles the issue of whether known steroid users like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire deserve to be voted into the Hall of Fame. It’s well-trod ground, but Posnanski makes the discussion fresh again by looking back at the history of baseball writers voting for Hall of Fame players, and the unintended consequences that come with making arbitrary rules meant to keep the HoF “pure”. If you’re a baseball fan, it’s well worth your time.
Joe Posnanski, The Future (And Past) of the HOF.
A ‘squirmish’ over language
The first time I saw a writer on the Internet misuse the word “squirmish” for “skirmish”, it was a message-board post on hawkeyenation.com earlier this week:
“I have never seen 3 technicals called in 19 seconds with no squirmish between the 2 teams.”
I only noted it in passing; as a general rule I do my best not to get too worked up about the rampant typos, grammatical errors, and general language mangling that you can expect to find in such a forum. But today I came across the same mistake, this time on what seems to be a more serious news site, irishcentral.com:
“The ‘Mail’ is largely viewed as a barely localized counterpart of its UK version, and has been involved in several squirmishes with Irish authorities over its often controversial techniques to get stories …”
Even allowing for the fact that Ireland speaks a unique form of English, it’s still an incorrect usage.
I wondered if this is some sort of ongoing trend of language degradation that I am only belatedly picking up on, so I asked my good friend Google. Lo and behold, the first couple of pages of results are dominated by reports of a Fox News TV appearance by Sarah Palin in March 2011, when she referred to the NATO intervention in Libya as a “squirmish.” I only checked the first few pages of search results, so I can’t be sure, but the Palin malapropism appears to be the only documented incident of recent vintage. It’s certainly possible that the poster at hawkeyenation.com picked it up from news reports of Palin’s blunder, but is it likely that reports of the incident traveled across the Atlantic to Ireland? Or is this a more common mistake than I think, and all sorts of people are skirming in their seats during a tense squirmish?
