At Christmas, an in-law and reader of this blog gave me the "Stupidest Things Ever Said" calendar. At first I thought it might be a bunch of stuff he had personally culled from my two blogs - my mistaken political predictions, or my half-baked ideas about what makes good marketing, and what doesn't. Much to my relief, however, it was "stupidest things" that other people had said. So now I look forward to exploring its daily revelations, some of which may even spark some bloggish intervention right here on The Tin Lizard.
MEANTIME, however, I find the daily news is also a source of plenty of humorous idiocy. Just within the past day or two, I see the following items that may appear in next year's calendar:
College Rankings: Lists of one thing or another seem always to be popular. Now, after many serious attempts to rank universities and colleges such as the most-cited one from U.S. News & World Report, apparently various other media have searched for other ways to rank colleges, from "hairiest," to "most Harry-Potterish." And as the item says, what possible use could rankings on these scales have? I guess the article provides its own answer. Yes, indeed, it seems as if:
"...anyone anywhere can rank anything using any information — and student newspapers will write about how their schools fared while national media outlets will blog it as news." (My emphasis.)
Columbia Gem Of The Oshin: A runaway teenager from Texas ended up in custody and falsely claimed to be an illegal immigrant from Colombia, in South America. Smart move! Accordingly, she was deported there. She's now being returned. Her mother is complaining, but why should she? It's a weird case because both the U.S. ICE, and Colombian consulate representatives in the U.S. evidently believed her story, even though - according to a facsimile of a form I saw on the TV version of this story - she misspelled the name of the country she claimed to be from.
A Mitt By Any Other Name: Last and possibly least, I reference Al Kamen's regular "In the Loop" column in the Washington Post, and specifically the last paragraph of it. Since Kamen's column is long and deals with a number of other subjects, and the part I want was spotted only by my sharp-eyed better half, I'll just quote it here for convenience:
Fits like a glove
In one of the most meaningful polls of the Republican presidential contest thus far, it seems that a full 2 percent of voters think that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s full first name is . . . Mittens.
Another 2 percent, according to the poll by “60 Minutes” and Vanity Fair, thought it was Gromit, 8 percent thought Milton and 18 percent figured on Mitchell.
Silly electorate. Of course, everyone knows it’s Mitterrand, right?
Silly electorate, indeed. They think his name is "Mittens?" And silly serious news media; who would spend time doing such a poll anyway? Actually, I did a little research and found that Romney is using an alias. Mitt is his middle name; his real name is Willard. Wow, if that gets out, he'll be out of the Presidential race in a heartbeat (though we did once elect a "Millard"). And if Wikipedia can be believed, Mitt is his full middle name; he was named after a relative whose name was "Milton" (but was affectionately known as Mitt).
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