“In response to recent media reports citing an alleged World Health Organization (WHO) study predicting the extinction of the naturally blond hair gene, WHO wishes to clarify that it has never conducted research on this subject,” the advisory said.

[...]

So how did many of the London tabloids, the BBC, several NBC-TV affiliates and CTV end up reporting late last week on a new study predicting the demise of naturally blond hair?

[...]

[A] Canadian journalism professor called the whole affair “obviously worrisome.”

“Clearly this is an example of major news organizations not checking their sources,” said James Compton, who teaches in the faculty of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario in London.

“I think you could make an argument that work routines are such that reporters are cutting corners — or feeling that they can get away with cutting corners.”

The Globe and Mail, Breaking News

The conference begins at sparrow fart…

” It aparte is dat wy nea op wearden as sadanich wiisd wurde, wy wurde konfrontearre mei foarskriften en wy moatte leauwe dat dy ta doel ha in wearde te befêstigjen sûnder te begripen om hokker wearde it giet. Dat is mei de âldste kodeks fan noarmen, de tsien geboaden, al it gefal. In noarm is ‘do silst net deaslaan’. Dat ús dúdlik, it libben is weardefol en moat beskerme wurde. In oare noarm is ‘do silst net troubrekke’. It houlik is in wearde en moat respektearre wurde. Ja, en dan begjint de twivel, ik soe it houlik gjin wearde neame wolle, it is bytiden in noflik en handich ynstitút, mear net.

It ferrifeljende en ferriederlike is, dat men as bern in grut tal regels oanrikt krijt dy ‘t allegear like belangryk en fan deselde oarder lykje te wêze. Do moatst de hân útstekke ast de bocht om wolst, do moatst op ‘e tiid nei de kapper gean, do moatst tsjin grutte lju mei twa wurden prate, do moatst foar iten hanwaskje. As bern moat men wol oannimme dat dy regels allegearre likefolle wearden tsjinje en it kostet tiid en tinken om te ûntdekken dat soks ûnsin is.

Trinus Riemersma, Noarmen en wearden.

• Interdisciplinary Research: Karl Kruszelnicki, of the University of Sydney, for performing a comprehensive survey of human belly button lint - who gets it, when, what colour, and how much.
  
• Mathematics: Two Indian scientists came up with a new method for estimating the surface area of elephants.
  
• Literature: Two US researchers wrote a colourful report on The Effects Of Pre-Existing Inappropriate Highlighting On Reading Comprehension.
  
• Peace: A Japanese team got the prize for promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bow-Lingual, a device that translates a dog’s barks into Japanese.
  
• Medicine: Chris McManus, of University College London, was able to show that ancient sculptures of men wrongly had a larger left testicle (in nature, the reverse is true, apparently!)
  

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).

” Een erg kleurrijk politicus was hij niet. In Amstelveen herinneren zijn CDA-collega’s zich Balkenendes scherpe debatteerstijl en boven de gemeentepolitiek uit stijgende analyses. Maar markante successen zijn moeilijk te vinden. Roem vergaarde hij met de krokettenmotie. Tijdens een lange vergadering werd de serieuze Balkenende wat balorig en diende een voorstel in om bij lange vergaderavonden kroketten te serveren. De motie werd aangenomen. “

Vandaag in Het Parool.

Our computers recorded the date and time that each person from the UK rated the jokes in LaughLab. Careful analysis of the data revealed that people found the jokes funniest on the 7th October at 6.03 in the evening. Perhaps we have scientifically discovered the funniest moment of the year.

The World’s Funniest Joke

Towards the end of their encounter at the Post House Hotel in August 2001, Borrows asked him, ‘Have you enjoyed your life?’

Higgins looked at Borrows, then adjusted his cravat. ‘I haven’t really had much to do with my life,’ he said. ‘All I’ve done is take part in it.’

An extract from Bill Borrows’ book

Farewell, Arts & Letters Daily.

Welcome, Philosophy & Literature, Human Nature Review, and ArtsJournal.com.

” Ik zou ook niet goed weten wat ik daarmee bedoel, maar ik vind dat het er goed staat “

Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren.

” Postmodernism is dead, finally killed off after years of sickness as a result of mortal injuries sustained on 11th September 2001. “

Death of an Idea.

Nevertheless, the question ‘Do you believe in truth or are you one of those frivolous postmodernists?’ is often the first one that journalists ask intellectuals whom they are assigned to interview. That question now plays the role previously played by the question ‘Do you believe in God, or are you one of those dangerous atheists?’. Literary types are frequently told that they do not love truth sufficiently. Such admonitions are delivered in the same tones in which their predecessors were reminded that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. “

Richard Rorty

>

A Magazine Cover Design Face-off.

Benieuwd wanneer de eerste vergelijkingen gemaakt worden tussen de bezoekersaantallen bij de dode Prins Claus en de opgebaarde Pim Fortuyn.

” NRC ligt namelijk totaal aan de ketting van het Amsterdamse advocatenkantoor Stibbe dat de krant altijd zo ruimhartig adviseert. Noch over zijn klanten (zowat alle grote bedrijven van Nederland behalve de retailers) noch over Stibbe zelf mag negatief worden bericht. Dit verklaart waarom NRC wel de spierbellen durft te laten zien tegen bedrijven als Laurus en Ahold [...], maar poeslief is als het gaat om ABN Amro en de grote bouwondernemingen zoals ik reeds eerder beschreef. Ahold en Laurus zijn namelijk geen client bij Stibbe. Ondertussen mag de eigen Stibbe-advocaat van NRC op de opiniepagina wel regelmatig kond doen van zijn theorieën waarbij hij zich vermomt als ‘onafhankelijk’ professor. “

Micha Kat

People who can’t draw often fake it by thickening or smudging their lines. Art teachers flunk students who do this, but the well-meaning viewer will look at the blur and unconsciously create in it the line that makes sense. What you get from writers today is the verbal equivalent of these little ruses, and the same aversion to simplicity and clarity. The way Auster repeats himself all the time, for example, is like a sketch- artist going over and over something with his charcoal - a badly drawn hand, say- until it has an impressively “worked-on” look. Or the way Proulx strings a dozen lame phrases into a long sentence that looks great when you read it with one eye on the TV. This isn’t the sort of late-Faulknerian badness that comes from over-exuberance or pomposity. It strikes me as very calculated, very furtive.

B.R. Myers A Reader’s Manifesto.
And an interview a year after this attack was first published.

” Reverie is crucial to the creative mind. And although this predominantly comes down to nurture over nature, creativity is lost without an instinctive ability to access free-floating mental states. “

What’s the Big Idea

” What I’m trying to bring home is the total absence of intellectual rigour. Students have no idea what it is to think. And what they are taught is absurd.

” In general, the problem boils down to the way English literature is taught. It’s scandalous. Any desire to read that hasn’t been destroyed by popular culture, television, films or computers, literature courses have taken care of! It’s an intellectual tragedy. All these ideological methods represent is careerism and vanity. There are guys going into their first year at university, they haven’t learnt anything in high school, don’t even know when the Second World War was, and they get a professor who gives them Foucault to read! “

Philip Roth, in The Independent.

The Rocket Engine Test Laboratory completed in 1957.

Bernh. Joh. Blume

[via Marcel van Eeden / Cioran]

Hoorde ik éen van de geachte volksvertegenwoordigers gisteren op televisie toch zeggen dat het onvermijdelijk was geworden de “ring in de handdoek te werpen”.

De gelijkenis van den verlorenen zoon in den tongval van de stad Groningen. Medegedeeld door den heer Mr. S. Reynders, oud notaris te Groningen. November 1870.

11. D’r was ‘rais ‘n man dei twei zeuns had.
12. En de jongste d’r van zee tegen ziin voader: voader! je mossen mij ‘t part geven van ‘t goud dat mij tou heurt. En dou deilde hij heur oet wat ze kriigen konnen.[...]

De gelijkenis van den verlorenen zoon in den tongval van het Oldambt. Medegedeeld door den heer P. Penon, predikant te Westerlee. November 1870. (In nederlandsche spelling.)

11. Er was is ‘n voader dei twei zeuns ha.
12. En dei de jonkste was, zee tegen ziin voader: voader! dout i mi wa’ ‘k veur miin porsie oet de boudel ken kriigen. En ij mouk dat elk bi ziin part kwam.
13. Doa ‘t ‘n klain zettien leden was en de jonkste zeun ‘t al bi ‘nander ha, is disse noa ‘n heil wiid land tou raist en doar het he ‘r heil breid van leeft en ‘t er al deur brocht.[...]

De gelijkenis van den verlorenen zoon in den tongval van de stad Maastricht. Medegedeeld door den heer Prof. P. Willems, hoogleeraar te Leuven. Maart 1873. (In nederlandsche spelling.)

11. Doa wos ins ‘nne maan, dee hat twie zeuns.
12. De jongste van die twie knape zag teege ze vajer: vajer! geef mich ‘t deil van et goot, wat mich toukump. En doe verdeilden er ze goot onder z’n twie zeuns.
13. Wienig doag doa noa, doe de jongste zoon al ze goot bij ein gedoon had, is er wiid van z’n awershoes gegange noa e vreemp lant, boe er alle ze goot in euverdoad verteert heet met ‘t vrouvolk woe er met leefde. [...]

Johan Winkler, Algemeen Nederduitsch en Friesch Dialecticon

” Thus when I read of the possible annihilation of the elephant or the whale, or the pouring of oven cleaner or cosmetics into the eyes of live kittens, or the close confinement of pigs and calves in lightless pens, I feel myself confronted by human stupidity, which I recognize as an enemy. This would be so even if I didn’t much care about the subjective experience of the animals themselves. For example, although I find that I can’t read Peter Singer for long without becoming dulled by his robotic utilitarianism, the parts of his famous book Animal Liberation that I find most impressive are the deadpan reprints of animal-experiment “reports,” written by white-coated dolts or possibly white-coated sadists. (The connection between stupidity and cruelty is a close one.) “

Christopher Hitchens, Political Animals

” Andrew Cavendish, the 11th Duke of Devonshire, was once asked by his estate workers when he planned to retire. He answered: ‘I’ve never worked a day in my life, so how can I retire?’ He is now 82 and still not working and still not retiring. Indolence, he explains, is the curse of the Cavendishes - they do very little but they do it well. He once wrote a Spectator diary which started: ‘January is the month when I re-arrange the books in the guest bedrooms here at Chatsworth.’ One waited agog to discover what else he did in January but, apart from musing on crocuses, that was it. “

Lynn Barber, The Original Thin White Duke.

” I think the enemy of creativity in the world today is that so much thinking is done for you. The environment is so full of television, party political broadcasts and advertising campaigns, you hardly need to do anything. We’re just drowning under manufactured fiction, which satisfies our need for fiction - you scarcely need to go and read a novel. “

JG Ballard.

Noch in boek mei wat sangen; wat witnisspul
Ut âlde brief beskreaun?
Mear kin ik net wachtsje; de oere giet,
De dream is hast ferdreaun.

Obe Postma [Fragmint]

Wêrom hjit in nije ronde yn in spultsje oer taal op ‘e Fryske taal in “nije omloop”? Om’t “omloop” ek yn it keatsen brûkt wurdt, en sa ta geef Frysk wurden is? Skuldich, troch allinne mar yn ‘e buert te wêzen?

“Un peu avant le coucher du soleil, l’heure où il ne me vient que des pensées fines, si fines que mon cerveau est comme un arbre dépouillé de feuilles. “

Jules Renard, 23 octobre 1905.