Concerning the recent Hamden v. Rumsefeld decision:
“I’ve got to say that this decision is a decisive victory in the war to spark ridiculous right wing commentary.”
—Andrew, from a comment “Guantanamo Treatment Illegal, Says SCOTUS”
Category: wordplay
Stuff about words or phrases
sub rosa
In a NYT editorial concerning America’s use of not-so-clever redefining the word “torture” to deny that America uses “extraordinary rendition†and similar tactics to cause de-facto torture:
But that doesn’t make it any less disturbing that the United States government seems to have lost its ability to distinguish between acts that may occur sub rosa in some exceptional, critical situations and the basic rules of proper international behavior.
Sub rosa means “pledged to secrecy†and is a Latin phrase (literally “under the roseâ€) which is a Middle Age practice that referenced a Greek myth I had not heard of.1
I first looked up the word when I wondered why SubRosaSoft, a Mac software company, got their name.
In any case, it’s a cool word. Also notice that the title of the editorial: “Secretary Rice’s Rendition†is a play on the double-meaning of the word rendition. I wasn’t aware of the legal meaning until this year—I can only guess as to how that word managed the tortuous path from its dramatic origin to the strange meaning today.
1 If Harpocrates is Horus, son of Isis (Egyptian Aphrodite) wouldn’t that imply that he is Eros or at least Eros’s brother. Why would Aphrodite give Eros a rose to give him directly? Me am confused!
Perfecting Watergate
Comparisons of how the Bush Administration is the the worst part of Nixon’s Watergate are like a bad hooker—cheap and easy.
The “paper of record†has an interesting article about the RNC front-organization, Progress for America. Basically, this group is heavily funded to rubber stamp anything that comes out of the White House—promoting John Robert’s nomination within 7 minutes, Harriet Meiers within 11 minutes, and having Sam Alito’s promotion ready before it was even announced. It’s very easy when half of your “grass roots†funds come from the same top 15 multimillion dollar donors as the President, your board consists of former Bush campaign aides, and your employees are part of the revolving door of Republican lobbyists. They have a term for that stuff in the tech world.
It’s called Astroturfing (as in “fake grassrootsâ€).
Lorem ipsum
While working on a project at work, I used the Lorem Ipsum text for something and Trevor asked about my use of it. I learned it when I did desktop publishing as a kid. The wikipedia entry explains what Lorem ipsum is much better than I can.
In this case, Lorem ipsum had the opposite of its intended effect and I rewrote the whole thing to avoid using it. The lesson I learned is just as I shouldn’t bother with Hungarian notation in my programming, I should avoid greeking my web pages and text graphics.