Posts Tagged ‘humor’
“Writing headlines is a specialty”*…
… and some are better at it than others. Greg Ross at Futility Closet illustrates, with an example from kinder, gentler times…
In 1986, Michael Kinsley, editor of The New Republic, spotted the headline “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” in the New York Times and challenged his readers to come up with a more boring one. This was a tall order: The Times head, someone said, manages to be “not only boring as a whole, but boring word by word.” Submissions included:
- “U.S. Leadership Needed” (New York Times)
- “Trade, A Two-Way Street” (New York Times)
- “Beyond the News, Larger Issues” (New York Times)
- “Thoughts at Graduation Time” (New York Times)
- “Continue Manned Flight in Space” (New York Times)
- “Chill Falls on Warming Relations Between Australia and Indonesia” (New York Times)
- “University of Rochester Decides to Keep Name” (New York Times)
- “Dramatic Changes Fail to Materialize on Hill” (Washington Post)
- “Surprises Unlikely in Indiana” (Chicago Tribune)
- “CIA Analysis Sees Soviet Economy in Need of Changes” (San Diego Union)
- “Prevent Burglary by Locking House, Detectives Urge” (Boston Globe)
- “Methodists Oppose Use of Nuclear Arms” (New York Times)
- “Economist Dies” (Wisconsin State Journal)
- “Turbulent Days for Donald D. Engen” (New York Times)
The winner was found in the New York Times science section: “Debate Goes on Over the Nature of Reality.”
“Strike Up the Bland” (TotH to @frauenfelder.bsky.social and @boingboing.net)
* legendary copy editor Bill Walsh
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As we reminisce, we might recall that it was on this date in 2022 that the Chinese Communist Party elected Xi Jinping as General Secretary for an unprecedented third term, consolidating his position as China’s paramount leader. The election broke decades of leadership succession tradition (with had limited a supreme leader to two terms) within the Communist Party. A party organ’s headline read “Xi Jinping leads CPC leadership in meeting the press.”
“The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down”*…
It’s that time of year again: earlier this month, the Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded…
Scientists who studied cockroach milk proteins, splash-free urinals, and buried underpants garnered top honors at the 36th Ig Nobel Prize ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 3. The humorous honors, which are given “for achievements that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK,” were awarded in Zurich for the first time, after 35 years of ceremonies in the US. The Ig Nobel’s organizers at the magazine Annals of Improbable Research moved the ceremony because of safety concerns for international winners and journalists traveling to the US, according to Marc Abrahams, Ig Nobel founder and the master of ceremonies…
… The Ig Nobel in Biomechanics went to the University of Oxford’s Matilda Brindle and coworkers, who have redefined kissing as “non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer” after observing the behavior in ants, birds, polar bears, and primates (Evol. Hum. Behav. 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2025.106788).
The discovery that milk proteins from viviparous cockroaches—insects that nourish their developing offspring within their bodies instead of in an external egg case—possess three times as much energy as cow milk proteins garnered the coveted Chemistry Prize. A team led by Leonard M. G. Chavas at Dectris Japan and Subramanian Ramaswamy at Purdue University studied the proteins from living Diploptera punctata cockroaches (IUCrJ 2016, DOI: 10.1107/S2052252516008903).
For their study “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior,” Paul K. Piff at the University of California, Irvine, and coworkers took home the Economics Ig Nobel. Among other things, they learned that drivers of expensive, late-model cars were more likely to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way intersection (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2012, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1118373109)...
“2026 Ig Nobel Prizes” from the American Chemical Society‘s Chemical and Engineering News.
The full list of this year’s Ig Nobel honorees is here; watch the (very amusing) ceremony here.
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As we extol the eccentric, we might spare a thought for Orville Redenbacher; he died on this date in 1995. An agronomist and businessman, he was described by The New York Times as “the agricultural visionary who all but single-handedly revolutionized the American popcorn industry.” Redenbacher’s interest in popcorn blossomed early. It was the favorite snack on his family’s farm, and he grew it (and sold it from the back of his car) to earn extra spending money.
After graduating from Purdue, Redenbacher returned to agriculture, serving as a Farm Bureau extension agent, then working in fertilizer sales. In 1951, Redenbacher and partner Charles F. Bowman bought the George F. Chester and Son seed corn plant in Boone Grove, Indiana. Naming their company “Chester Hybrids,” they tried tens of thousands of hybrid strains of popcorn before settling on a hybrid they named “RedBow.” Over the next two decades, Chester became a worldwide supplier of popcorn seed while also selling its own varieties directly to consumers at its plant in Valparaiso, Indiana.
In 1970, the company introduced a new gourmet hybrid popping corn (developed by plant breeder Carl Hartman) and began distributing it to retail outlets. On the advice of an advertising agency, the product was branded under Orville Redenbacher’s name, and launched as Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn (in 30-ounce jars)– with the tagline “World’s most expensive popping corn.”
While Orville Redenbacher-branded popcorn is still available, it is (a la last Wednesday’s post) no longer Orville’s passion product. In 1976, Redenbacher sold the company to Hunt-Wesson Foods, a division of Norton Simon, Inc. In 1983, Esmark purchased Norton Simon, which in turn was acquired by Beatrice Foods in 1984. In 1985 Kohlberg Kravis Robert acquired Beatrice with the goal of selling off businesses. In 1990, they sold the popcorn business and other old Hunt-Wesson businesses to agribusiness giant ConAgra.
“We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing”*…
… and so we shouldn’t. Ryan Weber (a professor of technical writing who, happily for us, moonlights) is here to help…
More at “‘Descartes Against Humanity’ and Other Games Designed by Famous Philosophers,” from @mcsweeneys.net.
Unrelated, but important: “Help save Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine by signing this petition.”
* George Bernard Shaw (though often mis-attributed to Benjamin Franklin)
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As we play, we might spare a thought for a philosopher whose game would likely be “The Game of Life,” Bernard Williams; he died on this date in 2003. As Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Williams became known for his efforts to reorient the study of moral philosophy to psychology, history, and in particular to the Greeks.
His publications include Problems of the Self (1973), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), and Truth and Truthfulness (2002). Gilbert Ryle, one of Williams’s mentors at Oxford University, said that Williams “understands what you’re going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, and all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you’ve got to the end of your own sentence.”
Described by Colin McGinn as an “analytical philosopher with the soul of a general humanist,” he was sceptical about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy. Martha Nussbaum wrote that he demanded of philosophy that it “come to terms with, and contain, the difficulty and complexity of human life.”
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”*…
Readers sometimes ask me where I find the items featured in (Roughly) Daily. The answer is that they are sifted out of the reading (politely put, “broad”; less politely put, “undisciplined”) that I do on a relatively continuous basis. I’m going to take today– April Fools Day– to spotlight the source of an occasional post, but of very regular enlightment and entertainment: Today in Tabs, from Rusty Foster.
Following, a lift of a single section of a recent issue…
Today in Scientists: Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week. “Should we be worried?” asks The Guardian’s Rich Pelley in a rare anti-Betteridge [see here]. A Billionaire-Backed Startup Wants to Grow ‘Organ Sacks’ to Replace Animal Testing, reports Wired’s Emily Mullin. At last, we’ve created ChickieNobs from the famous Margaret Atwood novel “Don’t Create ChickieNobs.” “If we can create a nonsentient, headless bodyoid for a human being, that will be a great source of organs.” Should we be worried? Scientists put 792 ants in a particle accelerator. They found out ants are all full of even littler stuff inside them. I already believed that, but it was just a superstition. Now we know it’s true. Should we be worried? Robert Hart in The Verge: No, ChatGPT did not cure a dog’s cancer. Apparently it’s relatively easy to make a genetically customized mRNA vaccine that does not cure cancer. Who knew! Becky Ferreira in 404: Why It’s Good to Jack Off Frequently, According to Science. Should we be worried (complimentary)?
Today in Headlines: “Quadruple amputee and cornhole pro accused of fatally shooting man while driving” is the craziest headline since “Charlie Kirk’s Mentor Jeff Webb, the Father of Modern Cheerleading, Dies in Freak Pickleball Accident,” which itself was the craziest headline since “Vaginal weightlifter sex coach charged with assaulting census taker who knocked at door.”
There’s so very much more where that came from: Today in Tabs, from @rusty.todayintabs.com— one the subscriptions for which I’m happiest to pay.
For the history of today’s distinction, see : “How Did April Fools’ Day Get Started?” (source of the image above)
* Shakespeare (Puck, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene II)
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As we smirk, we might recall that it was on this date in 1957 that Britain’s premiere documentary public affairs television show, the BBC’s Panorama, aired a segment, reported by host Richard Dimbleby, featuring a family in Ticino, Switzerland picking spaghetti from a “spaghetti tree.” About 8 million people were tuned in. The next day, hundreds of people called the BBC to ask if spaghetti trees were real and how to grow them. The BBC told callers to put some spaghetti in a can of tomato sauce and “hope for the best.”
“The bigger, the better”*…
Thea Applebaum Licht with a reminder that, when it comes to size, Texas has got nothing on California…
Between about 1905 and 1915, the United States entered a golden age of postcards. Cheaper and faster mail service, the advent of “divided back” cards (freeing the entire front for images), and improved commercial printing all drove a new mass market for collectible communication. It was at this same moment that a craze for “tall-tale” or “exaggeration” postcards reached its peak. By cutting, collaging, and re-photographing images, artists created out-of-proportion illusions. One of the most popular genres was agricultural goods of fantastic dimensions.
Nowhere were such postcards more popular than in the western states. There, in the heart of the tough business of agriculture, illustrations of folkloric American abundance were understandable favorites. Pride and place were tied up with the prodigious crops. Supersized fruits and vegetables were often accompanied by brief captions: “How We Do Things at Attica, Wis.”, “The Kind We Raise in Our State”, or “The Kind We Grow in Texas”. Photographers like William “Dad” H. Martin and Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. captured farmers harvesting furniture-sized onions and stacking corn cobs like timber, fisherman reeling in leviathans, and children sharing canoe-like slices of watermelon.
In the series of exaggeration postcards [produced in the run-up to the postcard boom, then published during it] collected [here], it is California that takes center stage. Produced by the prolific San Francisco–based publisher Edward H. Mitchell, each card features a single rail car rolling through lush farmland. Aboard are gargantuan, luminous fruits and vegetables: dimpled navel oranges, a dusky bunch of grapes, and mottled walnuts. Placed end-to-end, the cards would make a colorful train crossing California’s fertile valleys. Unlike other, more action-packed “tall-tale” cards — filled with farmers, fisherman, and children for scale — Mitchell’s series is restrained. Sharply illuminated, the colossal cargo lean toward artwork rather than gag. “A Carload of Mammoth Apples”[here], green-yellow and gleaming, could have been plucked from Rene Magritte’s The Son of Man [here].
Fabulous fruit and vegetables: “Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909),” from @publicdomainrev.bsky.social.
In other art-related news: (very) long-term readers might recall that, back in 2008, (R)D reported that London’s Daily Mail believed that it had tracked him down, and that he is Robin Gunningham. Now as Boing Boing reports:
Anyone reading Banksy’s Wikipedia article at any point since a famous Mail on Sunday exposé in 2008 would likely get the impression the secretive stenciler is probably Robin Gunningham or Robert Del Naja, artists who came from the Bristol Underground. Reuters, having conducted extensive research into their movements, finds both men present at critical moments, but only one at all of them: an arrest report from New York City puts Gunningham firmly in the frame, and recent public records from Ukraine put it beyond doubt.
We later unearthed previously undisclosed U.S. court records and police reports. These included a hand-written confession by the artist to a long-ago misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct – a document that revealed, beyond dispute, Banksy’s true identity. … Reuters presented that man with its findings about his identity and detailed questions about his work and career. He didn’t reply. Banksy’s company, Pest Control, said the artist “has decided to say nothing.”
His long-time lawyer, Mark Stephens, wrote to Reuters that Banksy “does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct.” He didn’t elaborate. Without confirming or denying Banksy’s identity, Stephens urged us not to publish this report, saying doing so would violate the artist’s privacy, interfere with his art and put him in danger.
Del Naja (better known for other work) evidently participates in painting the murals and is perhaps the stencil draftsman (Banksy: “he can actually draw”). Banksy’s former manager, Steve Lazarides, organized a legal name change for Gunningham after the Mail on Sunday item, which successfully ended records for Banksy’s movements under his birth name and stymied researchers—until Reuters figured out the new one by poring through Ukrainian public records on days Del Naja was there. Gunningham used the name David Jones, among the most common in the U.K. If it rings a bell, you might be thinking of another famous British artist was who obliged by his record company to find something more unique.
* common idiom
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As we live large, we might spare a thought for Isaac Newton; he died on this date (O.S.) in 1727. A polymath who was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed, Newton was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, author, and inventor. He contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, achieved the first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. He also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating infinitesimal calculus. (Newton developed calculus a couple of years before Leibniz, but published a couple of years after.) Newton spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1699) and Master (1699–1727) of the Royal Mint, a role in which he increased the trustworthiness/accuracy and security of British coinage in a way crucial to the rise of Great Britain as a commercial and colonial power.
Newton, of course, had a famous relationship with fruit:
Newton often told the story that he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree. The story is believed to have passed into popular knowledge after being related by Catherine Barton, Newton’s niece, to Voltaire. Voltaire then wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), “Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree.” – source
Newton’s apple is thought to have been the green skinned ‘Flower of Kent’ variety.
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