“Twenty-five years ago I got fired. I had been employed as a thrice-a-week afternoon babysitter for the two-year-old daughter of a prosperous young matron, who used the free time to run errands or nap. I never met the little girl’s father, but I talked to him regularly. At least once a week, usually more often than that, the phone would ring thirty minutes after my arrival, and he would give me a message for his wife: he was working late in the city and wouldn’t be home for dinner. I would duly report these facts — often as an afterthought, while the wife was fishing in her purse for my pay — and she would take the news stoically, heaving a brave little sigh and nodding. One day I showed up for work, gave the little girl a hug — we were fond of each other — and then settled the two of us down in the playroom. I made her a castle out of large cardboard blocks, and once she was happily playing inside it, I opened my French textbook and started to read. At no point did it cross my mind that by doing this I was in dereliction of duty. I was raised with my mother close by, but not hovering. Ditto my Saturday-night babysitters, whom I adored and who often did their homework as they sat beside me on the couch in the TV room. Anyway, while the little girl and I were enjoying the peaceful afternoon, the playroom door suddenly swung open — it was clearly a sting operation — and my boss glared at the scene as though she’d caught me in flagrante with the gardener while her child played with matches. I was sent home, and two hours later I was fired over the telephone. (‘You were supposed to be playing with her, not studying,’ she told me — perfectly reasonable, but I hadn’t known that’s what she wanted.)”

 

 – Caitlin Flanagan

 

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A few minutes ago, I stepped onto the deck
of the house. From there I could see and hear the water,
and everything that’s happened to me all these years.
It was hot and still. The tide was out.
No birds sang. As I leaned against the railing
a cobweb touched my forehead.
It caught in my hair. No one can blame me that I turned
and went inside. There was no wind. The sea
was dead calm. I hung the cobweb from the lampshade.
Where I watch it shudder now and then when my breath
touches it. A fine thread. Intricate.
Before long, before anyone realizes,
I’ll be gone from here.

 

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1. It’s the 9th largest country in the world (in area. but population is only 15 million)

2. Most people are descended from Mongol nomads, so look more east Asian than, like Borat, western European

3. Far from being anti-Semitic, it has a Jewish population of about 30,000, largely due to Kazakhstan taking in Holocaust refugees, plus dissidents being sent there by Stalin. The country has good relations with Israel

4. Rather than being uneducated like the “villagers” from Borat’s village, Kazakh has a 98% literacy rate, far higher than the U.S.’s rate

5. Recently wealthy due to oil, gas, and mineral deposits, the government is building its capital almost from scratch, hiring famous architects from throughout the world to design whimsical, high-tech, eco-friendly buildings

 

Extra: “The situation for women isn’t so bad as Borat depicted, with the current president grooming his daughter to replace him, so apparently a female dictator is just as acceptable as a male dictator. Let’s hear it for sisterhood! And women do hold a number of powerful positions throughout the country. Still, there’s a lot of sexism, and kidnap marriages were an old custom and sometimes do still occur, but ostensibly just for fun, as they’re illegal.”

 

Bonus: “The USSR launched the Mir space station from Kazakhstan.”

 

And one more: “In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Galapagos, virtually the entire human race is wiped out, and all humans afterwards are descended from 8 or so Kazakh girls.”

 

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Hollywood’s Private Personalized Plates (1991)

 

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Guglielmo Marconi was twenty-one years old when he invented the wireless radio.

 

It takes the interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.

 

The entire length of all the eyelashes shed by a human in their life is over 98 feet (30 m).

 

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“School term papers may be going the way of the typewriters once used to write them. ‘It’s so easy to cheat and steal from the Internet that I don’t even assign papers anymore,’ said Bobbie Eisenstock, an assistant professor of journalism at Cal State Northridge. ‘I got tired of night after night checking for cheaters.’ Across the country, teachers and professors are abandoning the traditional academic chore of tidy margins and meticulous footnotes because the Internet offers a searchable online smorgasbord of ready-made papers.” – Terril Yue Jones

 

[Any thoughts on this from the teachers out there? – E]

 

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April 15-17, every year: US taxes are due
April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech Shooting Spree. 33 dead
April 20, 1999: Columbine Massacre. 15 dead
April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City Bombing, 168 dead
April 19, 1993: Branch Davidian Siege, 81 dead
April 19, 1989: Turret exploded on USS Iowa. 47 dead
April, 1989: Tiananmen square massacre begins; 3000-5000 dead
April 18, 1983: Suicide bomber destroys Lebanon embassy. 63 dead
April 16, 1947: Texas City fire. 600+ dead
April 14-15, 1914: Titanic sinks. Approximately 1500 dead
April 20, 1889: Adolph Hitler born. Approximately 50 million dead
April 17, 1492: Columbus receives his contract from Spain for his planned voyage–untold millions dead
April 16, 73. Masada falls to the Romans, mass suicide, major blow to Jewish revolt against Romans

 

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Undergone swamp ticket   relative

whist natural sweep   innate bicker

flight notion  reach out tinsel reckoning

bit  straddle  iniquitous ramble stung

 

Famous furniture instant paschal

passionate Runnymede licorice

feature departure   frequency gnash

lance    sweat lodge rampart crow

 

Neck Bedlam philosophaster rain drape

lack fragile limitation   bitartrate

fence lenghen tinge impinge  classed

Fenster   planetary knocked market

 

Glass killjoy vanity  infanta part song

king  cleanse vast chromium watch it

neat      intense yellow cholera

ornithology insistence     pantry

 

Torque normal fax center globe host

yammer ratchet     zinc memory

yield  texture  tenure   Penelope

reed liter   risible stashed incomprehension

 

– 11 February 1990, Kennedy Airport New York, en route to San Diego

 

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Guided walking tour: “Zora Neale Hurston’s Washington,” led by Kim Roberts and Judith Bauer. Presented as part of The Big Read, by the Humanities Council of Washington, April 28, Saturday, 10:30 AM

Free, but reservations required. Meet in front of the Founders Library, Howard University campus, Georgia Avenue at Howard Place NW, DC. (202) 387-8391

 

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