An article from 1999

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill-easing-bank-laws.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1&emc=eta1

"March Madness"

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/2009/03/march-madness.html

6OT

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=290710041

Organic

from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th Ed.:

organic adj 1 archaic : INSTRUMENTAL 2 a : of, relating to, or arising in a bodily organ b : affecting the structure of the organism 3 a (1) : of, relating to, or derived from living organisms <~ evolution> (2) : of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant of animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides <~ farming> <~ produce> b (1) : of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds (2) : relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds 4 a : forming an integral element of a whole : FUNDAMENTAL b : having systematic coordination of parts : ORGANIZED c : having the characteristics of an organism : developing in the manner of a living plant or animal 5 : of, relating to, or constituting the law by which a government or organization exists

from Dictionary.com:

organic adj :

1 noting or pertaining to a class of chemical compounds that formerly comprised only those existing in or derived from plants or animals, but that now includes all other compounds of carbon.

2 characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms: organic remains found in rocks.

3 of or pertaining to an organ or the organs of an animal, plant, or fungus.

4 of, pertaining to, or affecting living tissue: organic pathology.

5 Psychology. caused by neurochemical, neuroendocrinologic, structural, or other physical impairment or change: organic disorder. Compare FUNCTIONAL.

6 Philosophy. having an organization similar in its complexity to that of living things.

7 characterized by the systematic arrangement of parts; organized; systematic: elements fitting together into a unified, organic whole.

8 of or pertaining to the basic constitution or structure of a thing; constitutional; structural: The flaws in your writing are too organic to be easily remedied.

9 developing in a manner analogous to the natural growth and evolution characteristic of living organisms; arising as a natural outgrowth.

10 viewing or explaining something as having a growth and development analogous to that of living organisms: an organic theory of history.

11 pertaining to, involving, or grown with fertilizers or pesticides of animal or vegetable origin, as distinguished from manufactured chemicals: organic farming; organic fruits.

12 Law. of or pertaining to the constitutional or essential law or laws of organizing the government of a state.

13 Architecture. noting or pertaining to any work of architecture regarded as analogous to plant or animal forms in having a structure and a plan that fulfill perfectly the functional requirements for the building and that form in themselves an intellectually lucid, integrated whole.

14 Fine Arts. of or pertaining to the shapes or forms in a work of art that are of irregular contour and seem to resemble or suggest forms found in nature.

from Thesaurus.com:

organic adj : amoebic, anatomical, animate, basal, biological, biotic, cellular, constitutional, elemental, essential, fundamental, inherent, innate, integral, live, living, necessary, nuclear, original, plasmic, primary, prime, primitive, principal, structural, unadulterated, vital

Terms of the Day

New Democrat
bromance
post-post-feminism

Correlation v. Causation

National Review's "Best Conservative Movies"

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YWQ4MDlhMWRkZDQ5YmViMDM1Yzc0MTE3ZTllY2E3MGM=

Forrest Gump: "... an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 60s."

Groundhog Day: "Murray begins the film as an irony-soaked narcissist, contemptuous of beauty, art, and commitment. His journey of self-discovery leads him to understand that the fads of modernity are no substitute for the permanent things."

Juno: "The film has its faults, including a number of crass moments and a pregnant high school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence. Yet it also exposes a broken culture in which teen sex is dehumanizing, girls struggle with "choice," and boys aimlessly try--and sometimes downright fail--to become men."

Ghostbusters: "You have to like a movie in which the bad guy is a regulation-happy buffoon from the EPA, and the solution to a public menace comes from the private sector."

The Dark Knight: "In his fight against the terrorist Joker, Batman has to devise a new means of surveillance, push the limits of the law, and accept the hatred of the press and public."

Making Sense

Telling a story is a way of structuring existence, creating order out of, not chaos, but the absence of order. Thinking about storytelling in this way requires that one momentarily accept the notion that the very idea of a unified narrative, a collection of incidents and emotions translated into sentences and paragraphs that are meaningfully interrelated (rather than haphazardly clustered together) and have a beginning and an ending, is not something that can be discovered, but something that must be, through an extraordinary process of mediation between one's mind and one's society, formed. It is difficult to tell a story that coheres internally, but in order to "make sense" this is what one must do. Yet the catch-22 here is that a coherent story requires one to make use of omission and to create bridges out of words, craftily so, to make what was omitted seem not as critical as what was told. These omissions account for, in some part, why it can never be satisfactorily said what it means to be human. That question is certainly the central force driving the human artistic impulse, and if it is ever universally resolved that the story of what it means to be human has been coherently stated without omissions, the artistic impulse will expire.

"It was March and the wind was blowing"

This passage from Virginia Woolf's The Years (1937) reminds me of today:

It was March and the wind was blowing. But it was not "blowing." It was scraping, scourging. It was so cruel. So unbecoming. Not merely did it bleach faces and raise red spots on noses; it tweaked up skirts; showed stout legs; made trousers reveal skeleton shins. There was no roundness, no fruit in it. Rather it was like the curve of a scythe which cuts, not corn, usefully; but destroys, revelling in sheer sterility. With one blast it blew out colour--even a Rembrandt in the National Gallery, even a solid ruby in a Bond Street window: one blast and they were gone. Had it any breeding place it was in the Isle of Dogs among tin cans lying beside a workhouse drab on the banks of a polluted city. It tossed up rotten leaves, gave them another span of degraded existence; scorned, derided them, yet had nothing to put in the place of the scorned, the derided. Down they fell. Uncreative, unproductive, yelling its joy in destruction, its power to peel off the bark, the bloom, and show the bare bone, it paled every window; drove old gentlemen further and further into the leather smelling recesses of clubs; and old ladies to sit eyeless, leather cheeked, joyless among the tassels and antimacassars* of their bedrooms and kitchens. Triumphing in its wantonness it emptied the streets; swept flesh before it; and coming smack against a dust cart standing outside the Army and Navy Stores, scattered along the pavement a litter of old envelopes; twists of hair; papers already blood smeared, yellow smeared, smudged with print and sent them scudding to plaster legs, lamp posts, pillar boxes, and fold themselves frantically against area railings.

*small coverings, usually ornamental, placed on the backs and arms of upholstered furniture to prevent wear or soiling; tidies.