Chrysler Dealer Arbitration

Neil Roland writes:

Sox and other lawyers have said the letters' requirements — including those for facility upgrades — go beyond those conditions laid down for existing dealerships that were not closed during the company's bankruptcy.

You have to wonder what the car companies have to gain by such antics.

I Write Like

This site claims to be able to figure out what famous writer you sound like:

Check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.

Unfortunately for me, I find different samples of my writing inspired a whole laundry list of comparisons. I thought maybe I'd catch a prevailing choice, but it felt pretty random to me.

How about for you?

The Final Piece

I had one three hour block of electives at seminary I had not already registered a class for. Tonight I signed up for one, meaning I now have everything scheduled I need to graduate. Amazingly, I will finish less than five months from now (assuming I survive the six classes I will be taking this fall!).

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes had just the right touch with words to make his famous poem graphic without being over the top. And, of course, he asks a mighty powerful question.

Newsweek's Ghost

Gruber writes (tongue-in-cheek):

So I say, “Who’d he write that for? I didn’t see anything on the Fake Steve blog about it.”

She says, “Newsweek, of course.”

“I thought they went out of business a few months ago.”

“No, they’re still around. I swear.”

Pretty much sums up the current state of the magazine. Sad.

51.

Well, I am back from a short trip to the Ozarks, which was absolutely lovely. Just too short. I always find I am not ready to return home from there.

In any case, my absence from my blog the last few days marked the end of fifty-one days of continuous posting on my blog. As far as I know, that is the longest continuous span of posting I have ever achieved and certainly the longest in recent years, when my posting here has been rather sporadic.

I wanted to do that for two reasons. First, I think the discipline of daily posting makes one think creatively about what can be posted and avoid turning a blog into a place for only highly polished pieces seemingly better fit to an online publication (like OFB). Second, after seeing a number of my favorite blogs from years past essentially dry up, I wanted to shore up my own commitment to the medium of blogging.

While the continuous posting has been broken, I am going to try to keep up daily posting more often in the future. I think its a habit that is actually constructive.

Sea Salt

My friend Dennis Powell writes:

I don’t mean to be cranky here. Please forgive me if I think it’s a little nutty that the phrase “with sea salt” is considered good when that phrase might mean “contains fish poop.”

When you put it that way…

Established Church

The Financial Times has an interesting piece on the Archbishop of Canterbury, which touches on the question of whether the Anglican Church is helped or hurt by being established:

Some of his colleagues were appalled when he raised the issue of disestablishment 18 months ago. This would give in “to a widespread and ignorant view that the Christian faith has nothing to contribute to public life”, fulminated Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester. Yet, might it be that separating church and state is a route back to the public square?

WashPo on Lack of Black Panther Story Coverage

The intimidation of voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election by the “New Black Panther Party” drew some attention at the time, but has become a firestorm since the Obama Administration decided to essentially drop all meaningful charges just as they were about to win the case. The Washington Post ombudsman has an interesting piece on WashPo's lack of coverage related to the case.

National Editor Kevin Merida, who termed the controversy “significant,” said he wished The Post had written about it sooner. The delay was a result of limited staffing and a heavy volume of other news on the Justice Department beat, he said.

Better late than never. There's plenty left to explore.

True. Better get exploring.

Love the Ads

Seen in an iTunes Store customer review of the Weather Channel app for iPad, which was a pretty good app at first, but has become extremely slow — brew-a-pot-of-coffee-while-it-loads slow — since the company went crazy plastering ads all over it:

Love the ads!
by sfiske

Is there a way that you can put even more ads into this app? As of now, I can still manage to get a little weather information around all of the ads…