By Zay N. Smith
News Headline: “Harvard students withdraw after cheating in ‘Intro to Congress’ course.”
As well they should.
These students failed to show the even most basic understanding of how Congress works.
The idea is never to be caught while cheating.
News Headline: “Alicia Keys’ sultry Super Bowl anthem.”
News Headline: “Was Alicia Keys’ national anthem the longest in history?”
Yes.
But what can we expect with our sultry national anthem?
News Headline: “Asteroid to fly between Earth and the moon.”
The story refers to Asteroid 2012 DA14, which will arrive in about nine days.
But it is a smallish asteroid.
No news headlines at all for Asteroid 2013 CY, which was discovered over the weekend.
That was five days after it passed between Earth and the moon.
But it was a smallish asteroid.
News Headline: “How do we protect our children from gun violence?”
News Headline: “Children at mercy of powerful NRA lobby.”
Do you see what the National Rifle Association has to put up with?
There are more than 40 million children under the age of 9 in the United States.
And we can’t seem to spare a few dozen now and then.
Robin Bond, a Chicago reader, regarding QT’s mention of a news story about an assault with an avocado and the announcement that readers’ games with the names of fruits had reached the end of the lime, writes:
“I hear the guy in the avocado assault had radish hair and a turnip nose. But I carrot not to continue this conversation.”
Vegetables now, eh?
QT makes one promise.
It will continue to view reader submissions without fear or fava.
News Headline: “American gaze turns to Super Bowl extravaganza.”
Or look at it this way:
The estimated amount of snacks eaten by Americans gazing at the Super Bowl weighed the equivalent of 27,720 Cadillac Escalades.
Or 14,174,000 spider monkeys, if you are still trying to visualize it.
QT Yellowstone Caldera (the eruptions of which can be violent enough to send a layer of ash six feet deep as far away as Chicago and which erupts every 600,000 or so years and last erupted 640,000 years ago) Update:
The U.S. Geological Survey reassured us this week that “current deformation patterns for Yellowstone are well within historical norms.”
And the agency will thank you not to dwell on history going back to 638,000 B.C.
News Headline: “Eating cream, mayo, sausage helps Bellevue teen limit seizures.”
Is there anything cream, mayo and sausage can’t do?
QT What Passes for Miracles These Days Update:
An image of Jesus has been found on a piece of a beer crate in Bradenton, Fla.
From a TV commercial for a prescription drug to aid sleeping:
Walking, eating, driving or engaging in other activities while asleep without remembering it the next day have been reported. Abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. In depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. Alcohol may worsen these risks. Allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. . . .
One more warning to users:
Reading about the side effects may cause sleeplessness.
Today’s Birthdays: Rubber Galoshes, 189; Demountable Automobile Tire Rims, 100; Dan Quayle, 66.
QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
+ M.K., a Chicago reader, wants you to know that “frequent,” when used as a verb, should have its accent on the second syllable.
+ M.W., a Park Ridge reader, wants you to know that the first syllable of “hummus” should rhyme with “room,” not “rum.”
Thirty-six percent of Illinoisans mispronounce “et cetera,” by the way.
Compared with 46 percent of Floridians.
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Posted on February 4, 2013