January 05, 2006

In which the gov'mint has a long way to go

From the first paragraph of the American Forces Press Service newsletter: "President Bush today kicked off a new national program designed to increase the number of Americans fluent in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindu, Farsi, and other critical-need languages."

The first critical need is noting the distinction between Hindi, "an Indo-European language spoken mainly in North, Central India and Western India; and Hindu, an adherent of "the dominant religious, philosophical and cultural system of Bharat (India), Nepal and the island of Bali".

Posted by salim at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)

In which th' other shoe has yet to drop

John Cage composed a piece of music, and his successors have drawn it out to a 639-year-long piece ("What, you started with 4'39"? We can make that initial rest a year and a half!").

Posted by salim at 06:13 AM | Comments (0)