Friday, December 9, 2011
Eating
the Dead Just an observation: If people are starving, they will eat each other. Granted, they will probably
wait for you to die first, but then you’re an entre. I base my hypothesis on three separate incidents, starting
with the Sea-Flower, a ship carrying immigrants to the New World in 1741 that ran out of food on the crossing and
the survivors turned to eating the dead. (Bryson 157) Then there’s the Uruguayan Air Force plane that crashed
in the Andes in 1972 – you know, the one with the rugby team. (The Andes Accident) And, of course, there’s
the Donner Party in the winter of 1846-47. But the Donner party should really count as more than one example, because
they were divided up into three separate groups, and they all turned to cannibalism independently of each other. And
a fourth party that was lost in the snow darn near did. And there’s anecdotal evidence that some of those in the
Donner Party didn’t wait until the person was dead. But that has never been substantiated. (Stewart)
True, that’s a limited sample, but I believe it warrants more study. I have no idea why you might ever need to
know something like that for sure, but it just seems like a good thing to know. Work Cited “The Andes Accident.”
2011. ¡Viven! 08 Dec. 2011. http://www.viven.com.uy/571/eng/accidente.asp Bryson, Bill. Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language.
New York: Harper, 2001. Stewart, George R. Ordeal by Hunger: The Classic
Story of the Donner Party. New York: Dell Pocket Books, 1973.
10:12 pm pst
Quick
Rule: Awhile Awhile is two words when it follows a preposition (such as “in a while”),
and one word when it doesn’t (such as “awhile ago we were traveling down the Yellow Brick Road…”).
9:32 pm pst
Word
of the Every So Often cantankerous: (adjective) difficult
to deal with; peevish. Because the teacher refused to accept sloppy work, his students labeled him as cantankerous.
9:30 pm pst
Monday, December 5, 2011
Yet Another Deep Thought Saying you’ve worked really hard on an assignment, therefore
you deserve a good grade is like saying you ran really fast in a race, therefore you deserve to win, regardless of which direction
you were running.
8:57 am pst
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