Random Notes from a Crank

The other day I was at an establishment getting my car's oil changed. An older gentleman was there, and he had on a hat that said "Cold War Veteran." I respect veterans. I have all kinds of veterans in my family in fact. But if a person lived during the Cold War, aren't they too Cold War veterans in a sense? 

As a recent article relates, battling global warming will also save loads of money: "By Getting Serious about Limiting Global Warming, the World Could Save Itself More than $20 Trillion." 

I've never figured out why people get so angry about people speaking something other than English in the USA. As another recent articles informs us: "Spanish Still Polarizing in US."  With Moscow Don's idiocy about the wall and Mexicans and other immigrants, such English-only nonsense is only getting worse, unfortunately.

Random Notes from a Crank

The Atlantic has a couple of articles worth a thinking person's time in the April issue. 

The first is "The Nancy Pelosi Problem," an article that demonstrates that the vitriol spewed against Pelosi by various people has a gendered proclivity. As the article shows, she's been pretty darn good at her job as Majority and Minority Leader. But a lot of what she's up against (and the Democrats for that matter) is showcased in the study that presents how people react to "John Burr" and "Ann Burr."

Another good piece features Julie Washington's work and research. She's a linguist who is trying to use AAV to help students succeed. Check out "The Code-Switcher: Julie Washington's Lifelong Quest to Change the Way We Teach Young Speakers of African-American English." 

"More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows" by Melinda Wenner Moyer in Scientific American should be required reading. I read it when it came out in October. The article won the American Society of Jounralists and Author's Excellence in Reporting Award.

In a more recent article in Scientific American, "The Number of Americans with No Religious Affiliation is Rising," the author reports on how the number of "nones" is getter larger in the US. I tend to agree with Shermer's statement that "This shift away from the dominance of any one religion is good for a secular society whose government is structured to discourage catch basins of power from building up and spilling over into people's private lives." Also, like the author, I find some of the beliefs of these non-religious people puzzling and downright silly.

Random Notes from a Crank

One of the dangers of having a subscription to The New Yorker is the magazine's "Briefly Noted" feature, which introduces people to recently published books. One issue sucked me into buying The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman, and now I'm considering other books that the feature introduced me to: Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America and Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-first.  

I've been a subscriber to Utne magazine since high school. The spring issue features a number of great articles. Here are three of them:

• "Bee-ware of Neonics" by Nicole Rivard. Considering how our food supply relies on bees and other pollinators, there either needs to be a ban or a multi-year moratorium on these pesticides. 
• "Building with Culture in Mind" by Fernando Pages Ruiz. Home builders are adjusting their plans according to cultural preferences that are not cookie-cutter. 
• "Will Racism Ever End, Will I Ever Stop Being a Nigger?" Just read it.

If you're interested in words that have grammatical versatility, check out "In Which We Get to the Bottom of Some Crazy-Ass Language."