Woman on Metro North is well educated: Woman gets asked to quiet down while using mobile phone; phone video captures her loudmouth reaction

Sweet Benedict, whilst thou art young,
And knowst not yet the use of tongue,
Keep it in thrall whilst thou art free:
Imprison it or it will thee.
            --John Hoskyns

Riding the train or bus to work can be a hassle if you live in a big metropolitan area. You have to learn to put up with a lot of stuff. Sometimes sitting on gum can ruin a good day; sometimes sitting on gum can be the least of your problems. A video is going viral as I type this (only 1654 views!) of a woman who gets upset over being asked to quiet down and stop using profanity while talking on her mobile phone. Again? you say. What's new? Well this video is more entertaining--and somewhat uncomfortable to watch--for the attitude the woman takes. She decides to defend herself by claiming how "well educated she [is]." The moment anyone uses this tactic, you know they lose all credibility of whatever social standing the think they have because of their schooling.



From the youtube description: This woman was talking too loud on the train when the conductor politely asked her to keep it down and stop using profanity or to take it to the vestibule. She jumped up and started yelling about how "educated" she is, proving the exact opposite.
There was an announcement a minute later asking all passengers to please not use profanity on the train, "especially those people who went to Harvard or Yale or are from Westport."

I like the part where she asks "do you know what schools I've been to" and where she asks for her money back.

Just how well educated is she?
Here is her linkdin profile, which  is also making the rounds.

E.A. Robinson's "The Mill": a poem capturing todays I can't find a job / life's a bitch mood

I thought and googled: The best I can't find a job poem is e.a. robinsons's "the mill"

"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even can enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind" (Thomas Babington Macaulay)

I will not pretend that poetry can be accessed and sought out by all people to find some solace like music or movies or even fiction. At least not today.

But hear me out those of you who think poetry is boring or hard: Reading E.A. Robinson's better poems, you understand how poems matter. I remember reading Robinson's "The Mill" as an undergraduate. I read him along with other Modern poets. Robinson, along with many other early modernists, wrote the kind of poems that outlined modernism's entire principles of mood and subject matter. Early modernist poets like Robinson (along with Housman and Hardy to name a few), made it so that poems could contain layers of ambiguity while attending to the readers' demand to literal meaning. This is no easy task. Later poets failed to achieve this duality of meaning and discovery.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post about poetry, there is no point debating the cultural utility and viability of Poetry in our age: it simply does not register as a cultural force or art form.

Notice something new? Google launches +1 "plus one" and further joins the clutter and fray

Google +1 (plus one)

In its continuing effort to rival Facebook, Google launched its own version of the ubiquitous "like" button.  Google, of course, says that their +1 (pronounced "plus one") feature is better because its recommendations will contextualize information thus making them more relevant.

Oh Betty! More on Nostalgia: Betty Brosmer

In a related query to my earlier I Choose Nostalgia post, I present you this:

I thought women could only look like this in cartoons

 Who is this iconic figure with the dazzling figure?

Vladimir Nabokov Hates Your Prose

NABOKOV HATES YOUR PROSE

Lolita is famous, not I
                                --Vladimir Nabokov


If you are like me (which I hope you aren't, for your sake), you cringe whenever people refer to a "Lolita" in some salacious yet totally out of place context. Language is dynamic and changes, I know. And truth is, I enjoy seeing literary references used outside of academia; I like to think that literature is still somewhat relevant and capable of penetrating our technocratic, solipsistic culture. But as a Nabokovphile, I am tasked to side with Nabokov's obtuse and often times untenable tenets about his characters and his motivations.

Dropping the e in websites and techy things ending in er, like in flickr, tumblr...[someone already blogged this]

After glimpsing a news story on yet another tech company that drops the "e" if the ending sounds like the word should end in "er" ( I say sounds like because, after all we cannot really know since some of these are made up words), I thought and googled: whats with these tech company names dropping the e?

The New Criterion and their Love of Big, Fancy Words--A Love Hate Sort of Thing

I thought and googled (after reading The New Criterion) : Why does the New Criterion love big fancy words?

If you read or have read enough of this publication, you will note its predilection for using big words especially in its "notes and comments section", which is basically the editorial section to voice its current grievances with culture for an already--how shall I say--heavily voiced journal.

I am not a pedant, but I do like the swift exactness that "long" words often offer the writer.

All Google Needs is its Own Power Source to Conquer the Technocratic World--And This May Happen Soon

I thought and googled : All Google needs is its own power or energy source for it to theoretically (as opposed to practically, maybe)  be able to take over our technocratic world.

I realize articles describing and deriding Google for its hegemony are a dime a dozen. And, frankly, when the articles are older, they seem to give Google more credit than possibly due; other contenders have emerged.

I usually don't think twice when I read articles similar to this one asking if Google is too powerful.

Why don't I worry much? Well, besides the fact that I am apathetic to most things described in such articles, it is because my power has gone out it in my home more than once in the past two months. I realize

Stop Saying Zeitgeist

Stop using the word zeitgeist. If you must use it, at least don't echo the word in your article (echoing in editorial, writer speak means repeating your language).

ZEITGEIST!

Now excuse me while I go wallow in my weltschmerz.