Monday, August 20, 2007

News (You can't make this stuff up):

Couple Tried to Name Their Baby "@"

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@," claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said Thursday.

The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.

"The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.

While "@" is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta," or "love him," to Mandarin speakers.

Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people's increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialization and the Internet break down conventions.

Another couple tried to give their child a name that rendered into English sounds like "King Osrina."

Li did not say if officials accepted the "@" name. But earlier this year the government announced a ban on names using Arabic numerals, foreign languages and symbols that do not belong to Chinese minority languages.

Sixty million Chinese faced the problem that their names use ancient characters so obscure that computers cannot recognize them and even fluent speakers were left scratching their heads, said Li, according to a transcript of the briefing on the government Web site (www.gov.cn).

One of them was the former Premier Zhu Rongji, whose name had a rare "rong" character that gave newspaper editors headaches.

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You can see more of Gary Varvel's work at: Gary Varvel's Blog




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Not News (but it could be):

White House Denies Existence of Karl Rove

WASHINGTON, DC—The White House denied rumors of wrongdoing by anyone named Karl Rove Monday, saying the alleged deputy chief of staff does not exist.

"To my knowledge, no one by the name of Karl Rove works for this president, his staff, or for that matter, anyone on earth, since he is not a real person," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Monday.

Despite White House denials, allegations have surfaced in recent weeks that Karl Rove is the man who leaked covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press. He is rumored to be President Bush's senior advisor, chief political strategist, architect of the president's 2000 and 2004 election victories, and the current deputy White House chief of staff, as well as a frequent guest on televised political talk shows.

The White House has called such reports "nonsense."


This rare photo (on right) depicts the man Bush Administration critics are calling "Karl Rove."

McClellan reiterated his denial of Karl Rove's existence 33 times during the press conference. When pressed, he distributed a list of "real, actual political figures about whom I'd be happy to comment." The list included only President George W. Bush and Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta.

Rumors of the figure's existence were given a boost early this month when, as part of the official investigation into the CIA leak, a Time magazine reporter named Rove as the source of the leak.

"This is a very clever fiction concocted by those on the other side of the aisle," Vice President Dick Cheney said. "It's preposterous at its core."

The phantom advisor has come under heavy fire in recent weeks from critics of the administration, who say he should be fired for his role in the scandal. President Bush has pledged that anyone in his administration found to be involved in the CIA leak will be dismissed.

"There is no such organization as the CIA," McClellan said. "This is tinfoil-hat stuff."

Initially demanding that the alleged Rove be fired, Democrats say they are now focusing their efforts on proving the figure's existence.

"I believe this deputy White House chief of staff is real, despite White House claims to the contrary," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. "But to disprove this wild ghost story, we must begin an exhaustive fact-finding mission, for which I pledge all the time and resources of the entire Democratic party."

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Word of the Day:

Word of the Day: Aestivate (verb)
Pronunciation: ['es-tê-veyt]

Definition: Spend the summer, especially in a dormant state (antonym of "hibernate").

Usage: The adjective is "aestival" and the noun, "aestivation."

Bears hibernate through the winter; desert amphibians aestivate during the hot, dry season.

Suggested Usage: Do you speak fast and find the long phrases like "spend my summers" slowing you down? Try: "I aestivate in Florida" to save your breath.

Perhaps you enjoy some aestival festival, like the Hog-calling Jamboree in Chinquapin, North Carolina each year. So, say so!

Etymology: From Latin aestivare "to spend the summer somewhere" from aestas "summer." Akin to Sanskrit indh "to kindle" and Old High German eiten "to heat" which gave Modern German Hitze "heat."
—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

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Day Spent on Internet Comes Full Circle

DAYTON, OH—A day of web surfing poetically ended just as it began Monday, when a random string of links brought area man Howard Nagel back to the same Facebook page on which he started nine hours earlier.

According to Nagel's browser history, he followed a friend's music recommendation link to Amazon, wound through MySpace, eBay, and Craigslist, then spent several hours watching YouTube videos before ultimately following an IMDB comment-board posting back to the original Facebook page that began his epic odyssey.

"And thus, the great cycle of life continues," said Nagel, pondering the mysteries of existence as his day online drew to a close. "One more full spin of the wheel of destiny." Nagel said that he was looking forward to another "once-in-a-lifetime electronic journey" Tuesday or possibly Wednesday.

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Quote:

"There is, of course, this matter of being afraid to give freedom to young children. I believe they have that within themselves which makes it possible for them to meet the world and life, and interpret it more nearly aright than can we.

They carry with them that inheritance of faith and imagination undimmed; and that tremendous surging desire to know, to see, to feel and to do, which is rarely betrayed.

In our desire as adults to lay hold of a child's life, to grip it, mold it to our own values, we do unwittingly a great harm. We confront children with our own fears, our own lack of faith; to safeguard them we attempt to thrust between them and life those many false illusions which we have picked up in our own twisting, turning way.

Children take a far more advantageous highroad. A free child is a happy child; and there is nothing more lovely . . ."
-- Ruth Sawyer, in her acceptance speech upon winning the Newberry Award for _Roller Skates_, 1936

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Joke:

THE PROBLEM WITH HIGH URINALS.....

A group of Kentucky second, third, and fourth graders, accompanied by two female teachers, went on a field trip to Churchill Downs, the famous Louisville race track, to see and learn about thoroughbred horses.When it was time to take the children to the bathroom, it was decided that the girls would go with one teacher and the boys would go with the other.

The teacher assigned to the boys was waiting outside the men's room when one of the boys came out and told her that none of them could reach the urinal.

Having no choice, she went inside, helped the boys with their pants, and began hoisting the boys up, one by one, holding onto their "wee-wees" to direct the flow away from their clothes.

As she lifted one, she couldn't help but notice that he was unusually well endowed. Trying not to show that she was staring, the teacher said, "You must be in the fourth grade."

He replied: "No, ma'am, I'm riding Silver Arrow in the 7th race today.