I checked in with Martha Stewart last week. You know, as I was making my rounds of Internet time-wasting. I'm gratified to report that, in addition to her collections of jadeite, stoneware, baskets, faux bois, and disgruntled ex-employees, Martha now is collecting antique horse-drawn carriages.
I'm not kidding, she even blogged about it. Now, some people may think that this kind of materialism and consumption is disproportionate, even obscene, but if we didn't have Martha to do it, out in the open, how would we know that it is done? She's like the Annie Sprinkle of wealth.
Dolly Parton, on the other hand, has this very interesting cooperative program that provides a book a month to every child born in a community until the child reaches 5 years old. Called the Imagination Library, you can scale it to your resources - the community can be as small as a hospital or as large as a state.
And while you're standing around at the reference desk with a minute between customers, FreeRice is a game that tests your vocabulary while providing food aid through the UN World Food Program.
"Excoriate" and "priggish" are two words that I just got, and I'd like to use them in a sentence:
"Is it priggish of me to excoriate Martha Stewart for spending a whole batch of cash on fucking horse-drawn carriages when that money could be spent on AIDS prevention, technology access, green urbanism, education in Africa, education and health, or promoting human rights?"
the Free Rice thing is somewhat addictive. would it be rude to write and correct some of their definitions?
ReplyDeleteThat bugged me too, but I think that they're using OED definitions, and that's why some of them don't look right to us.
ReplyDelete