America and its feuds

Feuds are not unique to America, of course -- they're the basis of, for example, the plot of Romeo & Juliet, set in Italy by an English writer -- but this one has some uniquely American features. It involves an "Elvis impersonator," i.e. someone whose job includes dressing up like and imitating Elvis Presley. (I used to run into one of these every so often at my local drugstore in Los Angeles. In full costume, he was kind of hard to miss.) Anyway, this particular Elvis was arrested and charged with sending letters laced with the "ricin" toxin to public officials, including President Obama and an obscure local judge. Fortunately, nobody was injured. (It is, by the way, completely ridiculous to send poisoned letters to the president. Guess what, Mr. Criminal Mastermind? He doesn't open his own mail.)

It soon came out, though, that the guy under arrest was innocent and was apparently being "framed." By whom? The FBI now thinks the real perpetrator was a different guy who was having a feud of some kind with the first guy. And, although this wasn't the reason for the feud, the second guy is a Wayne Newton impersonator. Wayne Newton is less world-famous than Elvis, but appeared quite a bit on America TV in the '60s and is still performing in Las Vegas, apparently with the help of fairly intensive plastic surgery. (What was the suspect's motive for manufacturing home-made ricin and trying to kill people with it? Not entirely clear, although the local judge who got one of the letters is the mother of a third guy who once defeated the suspect in a local political campaign.) And just to round out the absurdity, the new accused guy has a lawyer named George Lucas, which you might recognize as the name of the creator/producer of Star Wars.

Other ridiculous feuds include one currently underway in upstate New York between vendors of children's ice cream. Seriously. Already this one, too, has led to criminal charges, although thankfully no attempted murders. I would blame it on the hyper-competitive capitalist culture of the US, except the situation resembles the genuinely deadly "Glasgow Ice Cream Wars" of the 1980s, as well as the premise of a Scottish comedy from that era called Comfort and Joy. Maybe it's best in general just to watch out for ice-cream vendors no matter what country you're in -- those guys don't mess around.

Further notes on the ever-changing English language

Here are a few interesting and/or amusing items I've been collecting that relate to English. First, the good news that the redundant and usually pretentious word "whom" is dying out. Unfortunately, as with most changes in language, this is probably going to take a few more decades. Meanwhile, new forms and usages are developing through slang and social media. One writer recently described how the punctuation mark "slash" has become a word people use in conversation. Another defended "texting" against critics who say it's dumbing down the language. Another discussed the origins of emoticons, offering the (to me) surprising news that not only is the "smiley-face" older than I thought, but there were suggestions already back in the 19th century for developing some way of punctuating text to express subtle emotions and effects, particularly irony. And here we have the news that "Like," the button one uses to respond to posts on Facebook and some other sites, was originally going to be called "Awesome." This writer, contrary to the one linked to above, does think that there's some kind of dumbing-down at work here.

Finally, words you can’t use legally use to name a child in New Zealand. (Contrast this with these jokes from the American comedian Louis CK, who imagines some names that Americans might give their kids because there's no such legal restriction.) And for those of you who like to sing along to pop/rock tunes in English, here's the invaluable Aarchive of Misheard Song Lyrics. Get it right! :-)

NBA player comes out

I don't know whether any of you like basketball but I think this is great news for other players and fans. NBA player Jason Collins came out today in Sports Illustrated. I thought you might be interested in the article he wrote
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/magazine/news/20130429/jason-collins-gay-nba-player/#ixzz2RrizK55r
The whole article is well written, I think he makes some good points about stereotypes.

Big Brother, crime fighter

CCTV surveillance in the US is on the rise, as BBC News report. The attitude of Americans towards security systems has been slowly changing because of undeniable importance of security cameras in the fight against crime, especially taking into consideration the recent events in Boston.

CCTV systems are typical of the UK, where there is reportedly one CCTV for every 32 people. In London, the average person is caught on one of these cameras 300 times a day! This is why the opponents of CCTV claim that such measures violate the privacy of people, and thus deprive them of their civil liberties.

What do you think about these security systems? Would you agree to be "constantly" watched  if it helped to lower the crime rate or would you consider it to be a big intervention in your privacy? 

I found quite an interesting article about cosmetic procedures. I'm not really against it but I'm surprised and frankly even shocked by how she talked about the whole procedure, like it's a trivial thing, something to be done between having a lunch and going back to work.
What do you think, would you ever consider having something like that done to you? There is also a short video for those of you who are not squeamish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22277890