Beginning to worry if I'm turning into a David Brooksian clueless wuss –you know, the kind that kinda sounds like he knows what he’s talking about until he starts talking about something you actually  know something about and it becomes apparent that he’s just as clueless as the next clueless guy—except he’s the clueless guy who has a column in the NY Times.  So I’m gonna see if I can find some new and not so wussy ways to keep myself and my readers 
( Kak dyela dudes? ) entertained…or at the very least mildly diverted.

—I’ll start my rehabilitation by going back to the basics.  And that means short,  simple and so dispensible  that its hardly worth anyone’s while to consider it worthy of considerable consideration, let alone consider considering consideration at all---considering …

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.”

....is a grammatically legit sentence…once you get where the three meanings for Buffalo are landing:  using synonyms it translates to:

“Buffalo-origin bison that other Buffalo bison intimidate, themselves bully Buffalo bison.”

I previously posted the short story Hemingway wrote that reads in it's entirety:

"For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."

But I don't think I ever shared my favorite short sentence from Ring Lardner: 

"Shut up, he explained."

Eureka!  I think I've found the key at last.  I'm a writer of bathroom reading!  It beats staring at the cracks in the tile grout,  yet it's not so compelling as to make you extend your stay past the point of doing your duty (sic).



SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO...

" NOW BACK BY UNPOPULAR DEMAND...MORE "NEW WORDS." 


Bozone Layer:   invisible substance surrounding some people that prevents common sense from reaching them.
Deifenestration: To throw all talk of God out the window.
Fortissimoe:  The musical dynamic create when the first violinist slaps the second.
Dimages:  Compensation for people who suffered accidents due to their own stupidity.
Eunouch:  The sound of castration.
Giraffiti:  The Graffiti  that make you wonder: " How'd they get up there?".
Coppertone:  The intonation that accompanies " May I see your license and 
registration please..."
Hipititis:  Incurable condition afflicting the chronically cool.
Inportune:  A Request that others listen to your bad singing.
Lullabuy:   Music accompanying commercials that induces drowsiness.
Orbituary:  Notification of the loss of a satellite.
Sarchasm:  The cognitive gap between the satirical writer and the literal minded reader.
Wankst:  Post maturbatory depression.
Aloha Oy:  A Hawaiian greeting to tourists from Long Island.
Monage A Trois:  Translates to:  I am three years old.
Veni. Vidi. Velcro:  I came. I saw. I stuck around.

Cogito Eggo Sum:  I think, therefore I waffle.

 Karmageddon:  Yeah, it's the end of the world, but we probably had it coming. 

[He] did not understand women. It wasn’t the  
way bartenders or comedians didn’t understand women, it was the way poor people didn’t  understand the economy. You could stand outside the Girard Bank Building every day of  your life and never guess anything about what went on in there. That’s why, in their hearts, they’d always rather stick up a 7-Eleven.” 

 --Pete Dexter, God’s Pocket

Friend (JM) turned me on to the story about physicist Niels Bohr (left with pal Al).  Seems the brainy Dane loved Wild West Movies and wondered why the bad guy always lost the gunfight despite the fact that he was always the first to draw his gun.  Other than the romantic requirements of the plot, Bohr sensed that maybe there was something else to it.  Could it be that reaction driven action is faster than thought driven action? Subsequent experiments proved his hunch--which seems to explain why in Boxing, the counter puncher often beats his opponent to the punch.    

You can read more at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35208415/ns/health-behavior/#.T6RGnM1sigQ

Last year, Andy Borowitz  came out with " The 50 Funniest American Writers".  An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion.  Thought it was interesting that Twain was the only one included who wrote prior to the 20th Century.  I thought it probably had something to do with the fact that a lot of comedy relies on associations with timely matters and current affairs, but that doesn't quite hold up considering that Moliere, Wilde, Fielding, Swift, and even Shakespeare still manage to elicit some solid guffaws in a contemporary audience.  So I wonder if it has more to do with pre 20th century America when people were too busy working, striving, struggling, surviving and inventing the American Dream to have any free time for a few chuckles... which makes me wonder if there are any good comic writers in China today.  

“Numbers can be made to tell as many stories as a crooked lawyer or an old comedian.” — Lewis Lapham,   former Editor in chief and creator of  Harper’s Index

Reliable numbers don’t always translate into reliable stories or even into reliable facts…but Harper’s Index is always good for a couple of head scratches and laughs.  I used to subscribe to the magazine and could always count on the index to provide pretty good bathroom reading fare…so I went digging.  

Percentage of web links for requests to “unsubscribe” from mass emails that fail: 63

Rank of “god” and “satan” among the top Google searches beginning with “who is”: 1

Estimated number of registered voters in Zimbabwe who are dead = 1/4

Number of active militias in the USA in 2000 and 2010 = 43 / 330

Minimum number of times that Frederick Douglass was beaten in what is now Donald Rumsfeld’s vacation home: twenty-five. 

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act: fifty  (according to ACLU)

Number of rare lizards that New Zealand customs officials found hidden in a German man’s underpants in December: 44.

Amount employees of private-equity firm Bain Capital have donated to the campaiign of its co-founder Mitt Romney: $69,500

...To the Obama campaign: $119,900

Number of insect fragments allowed by the FDA in a standard jar of peanut butter: 153

Percentage tax rate that Goldman Sachs paid on its profits for year 2008: 0.6 *

Price last fall for which a North Carolina middle school allowed students to buy extra-credit points on any test: $20 **

* Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October 2007, paid $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007.

Long story short… they moved their money out of the U.S.…The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent.

**A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points - 10 extra points on two tests of the student's choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.  Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money. "Last year they did chocolates, and it didn't generate anything," Shepherd said.