Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by David Horsey

Book Reviews: "Merivel: A Man of His Time," Rose Tremain

Find reviews of over 2,300 books, including this one, at The Walrus Said blog.  
 

Language Cop: Tracking the large amount of grammatical rules

In this day and age, when grammatical rules fly out the window with impunity, I could probably count on two hands the number of people who actually know, or care, that there’s a distinction between “number” and “amount.” Let's face it. No one sweats this stuff anymore, except a few aging fuddy-duddies. Or so it seems.

But what the hell. This is my blog. The distinction matters to me. So I’m going to point it out. After all, no one’s forcing you to hang out here.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary explains the difference this way.

Number is regularly used with count nouns (a large number of mistakes) (any number of times), while amount is mainly used with mass nouns (annual amount of rainfall) (a substantial amount of money). The use of amount with count nouns has been frequently criticized; it usually occurs when the number of things is thought of as a mass or collection (glad to furnish any amount of black pebbles — New Yorker) (a substantial amount of film offers — Lily Tomlin) or when money is involved (a substantial amount of loans — E. R. Black).

So, if the book you’re reading is too long for your taste, please don't complain about the amount of pages. They're pages. In a book. They're numbered. So save "amount" for a more appropriate setting. After all, you wouldn’t grumble about the number of time you’re wasting on that tome, now, would you?

Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by Jim Morin

American Civil War: 150 years ago today on March 9, 1864

The Civil War, 1861-1865

March 9, 1864

Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Gen. Henry W. Halleck as general in chief.

U.S. Adm. David D. Porter assembles his gunboat squadron at the mouth of the Red River in Louisiana, prior to the advance against Shreveport.

Information from the Civil War Almanac, by John C. Fredriksen (Checkmark Books) 

Illustration: detail from the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston honoring the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment 

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a rat's patootie

Once upon a time in America, we cared about things that mattered. Or inconsequential things that were, at least, interesting, such as memorable people and events. But that's so 19th century, don't you think? Now we're supposed to be intrigued by sad little "news stories" like this. It probably would have been a big hit in the Roman Forum during the final days of the empire.

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature/2014/03/justin-bieber-selena-gomez-spotted-together-texas-starbucks

Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by Tom Toles

American Civil War: 150 years ago today on March 8, 1864

The Civil War, 1861-1865

March 8, 1864

Having accepted his commission as lieutenant general, Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first American to hold that rank since George Washington.

Information from the Civil War Almanac, by John C. Fredriksen (Checkmark Books) 

Illustration: detail from the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston honoring the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment 

Fine Lines: Rev. John Koletas and the New York Daily News

Fine Lines takes a look at headlines from the tabloids. Not the supermarket rags, but real newspapers, such as the Boston Herald, the New York Post, and the Philadelphia Daily News, that serve up the news with a touch of brass. A clever or pointed tabloid headline is a thing of beauty (or at least a heck of a lot of fun), especially if it involves wit and wordplay.

The New York Daily News reports that the Rev. John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Troy, N.Y., plans to raffle an AR-15 assault rifle at his church. Koletas told the newspaper he is “honoring gun owners and hunters” and “being a blessing and a help to people who have been attacked, viciously attacked, by socialists and anti-Christian people — the politicians and the media.”

Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by Dave Granlund

Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by Tom Toles

Editorial cartoonists: keeping the legacy of Thomas Nast alive

by Clay Bennett

Chicken Scratchings . . . . . the hen chronicles, continued (chapter 105)

On April 21, 2012, my wife Liz and I - chicken neophytes - bought three laying hens, who set up shop in a coop in the backyard of our city lot here in Maine. The makeup of our small flock has changed since then, but not our love of chickens. Chicken Scratchings looks at life with our tenants.

 

I doubt that our hens know, or care, about their therapeutic skills, but that's fine. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so here it is. Our "girls" put a smile on my face and a spring in my step day after day, simply by doing their job. And late last week, they outdid themselves.

Let me explain.

Before we bought our first hens in April 2012, I never gave a thought to how often chickens lay eggs. But now, almost two years later, I find myself mildly obsessed (if that’s possible) with what is, for hens, Job One. It’s satisfying, plain and simple, to see Snow, Nala, Hope and Nellie laying well.

The past two months or so have not been the best of times in that department. For one thing, hens produce fewer eggs during the winter, because they need a certain amount of daylight to get the apparatus cranked up and shorter days slow the process. When our four hens are running on all cylinders, we typically get three or four eggs a day during the summer, but only one or two eggs a day during the winter, and occasionally none at all.

On top of that, Hope, one of our two Rhode Island Reds, has been molting, and molting hens rarely produce any eggs until their new feathers come in. With Hope temporarily out of commission, we’ve been down to three laying hens for a while now, at a time when their output is off somewhat anyway, because of the season.

So, imagine my surprise when I went out to the coop Friday with a late-morning snack for the girls and found not one, not two, but three eggs resting side by side on a bed of pine shavings in the nest box. The next day, my wife Liz found three more in the same spot, marking the first time in two months that the hens have produced three eggs on two consecutive days. (Hey, I said I was obsessive, and that certainly applies to keeping records.) All of the hens took Sunday off, but three of them bounced back with three more eggs on Monday.

Laying is what hens do, of course. To them, it’s as natural as eating and breathing and clucking. Yet even after retrieving eggs day in and day out for the last 23 months, the sight of a freshly laid egg in the nest box still gives me a boost. The more eggs there are, the more enthusiastic I become.

The world at large may be going to hell in a thousand different ways, but there is a measure of stability to be found in something as pedestrian as the nest box in a chicken coop. Backyard chickens are the pets that just keep on giving. Each egg is a carefully wrapped gift, a fragile reminder of our bounty. The novelty never wears off.

There are eight million stories in the naked henhouse. This has been one of them.