Miscellaneous Characters

I was looking through a Linotype specimen book today from 1920, glancing at the faces, the advertising figures, some info on “the Rogers Tabular Matrix,” that sort of thing, when I came upon a page in the “miscellaneous characters” section which made me pause. It was a page titled “party emblems” and featured icons meant to represent 10 separate political parties. I thought, “In 1920, less than a single lifetime ago, there were 10 political parties in America taken seriously enough to warrant a logo?” My my, how times have changed.


Quote: “In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” And you thought the wheel of samsara was complicated now! Ha. Wait and see what some good ‘ol fashioned bureaucracy can do… A lifetime of karmic actions in triplicate anyone? The Pope may have to rethink his stance on purgatory… The real punchline though is less amazingly and perfectly hilarious. Ah well.

08.22. filed under: belief. headlines. politics. 3

It strikes me that most of we lay-folk, unversed in the “art of war” as we are, find ourselves dismayed and horrified by the goings-on in Iraq (yes, lest we forget in the fog of news on other ugliness, we’re still there) and I wondered whether there was anything I could do to help my fellow citizens better grasp the situation. After much research I was surprised to find that the Bush cadre does indeed have an exit strategy, and that the violence, strife, and chaos we see daily on our idiot boxes is not exactly what it seems. Following this brilliant strategy the Administration in fact has the broiling insurgency right where they want them. In as much I decided to take the initiative and create a handy, hands-on, illustrated handout, suitable for the White House website, social studies teachers and parents wishing to instruct the young, or indeed any lay person seeking to better understand the Bush administration’s exit strategy. See below.

08.06. filed under: !. criticism. politics. 4

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces?

I took this picture what seems a thousand years ago, when I was still a lad and my father was working on the 72nd floor of the Empire State Building. (You could actually just walk over and open the widows like they were the little sliver of a bathroom window in your apartment.) At the time it was just a bad photograph. Not quite perfectly exposed, not quite perfectly framed. A couple of buildings and a shroud of thick fog. Fwap! Onto the pile. But now? Well, with that whole “buildings in heaven” look it got going on perhaps it’s found a new relevance?


That G.W. Bush does not bother reading the paper is a on the record and well known. That the current Administration in Washington on the whole dislikes the press is obvious. First there was the uproar over the revelation of the N.S.A. wire-tapping program. Just last week we witnessed the President, Vice President, and other members of the Administration lash out angrily over the New York Times story which disclosed a secret C.I.A. program to trace financial records. Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, even called for a criminal investigation of The Times. It seems that something must be done.


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