Paraprosdokians

An old friend from Texas sent some paraprosdokians. You can't eat them or plant them in your yard, but you can enjoy them. In fact, you have, even if you didn't know it.

From englishforums.com: A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or re-interpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.

Examples:

1. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
2. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
3. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.
4. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
5. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
6. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
7. Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.
8. You do not need a parachute to sky dive. You only need a parachute to sky dive twice.
9. A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.
10. Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.
11. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.
12. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Answer to last week's question: What's wrong with this Fox News Headline?
"Nine people killed in Oklahoma and Arkansas after tornadoes, severe storms moved through"
The word "after." If the people were killed after the tornadoes moved through, what killed them? And what does it have to do with the storms?

Fox bloopers

Fox News headline:
"Dog Killed by Alligator Lurking Near Florida Home"
I can see where that might make the home's residents nervous. But dead dogs are harmless, aren't they?

What's wrong with this Fox News Headline?
"Nine people killed in Oklahoma and Arkansas after tornadoes, severe storms moved through"

Review review

Review of a review of a film of a book

Movie reviews are rarely a kick, but P.J. O'Rourke's review of "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1" in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal is.

Read the review even if you've never read the book and don't intend to see the film.

The title of the review is classic O'Rourke: "Atlas shrugged. And so did I." You can almost see the disciples of Ayn Rand reaching for their pitchforks.

He writes: "I will not pan 'Atlas Shrugged.' I don’t have the guts. If you associate with Randians — and I do — saying anything critical about Ayn Rand is almost as scary as saying anything critical to Ayn Rand. What’s more, given how protective Randians are of Rand, I’m not sure she’s dead."

He has Randians, who prefer to call themselves objectivists, pegged. But he did have the guts after all, and he did pan it. Gently.

I might interject that I'm actually looking forward to the movie, which Hollywood has threatened to make ever since Rand personally tried to ingratiate herself to Tinseltown. It is needed in a time when people don't read 900-page books (if they ever did) and are therefore unarmed against the collectivist propaganda spilling out of academia into places where its peddlers might actually exert influence, like the White House.

But I'm off track. O'Rourke correctly notes that the current wave of collectivism gave rise to more than just an overdue — but strangely not updated — film about Rand's most famous book: "Hence the Tea Party, and Ayn Rand is invited. Not for nothing is Kentucky Senator Paul named Rand. The premise of 'Atlas Shrugged' applies to every maker in a world of takers."

The tea party wasn't around when this film was conceived, but the movement will swell the movie audiences. It sounds like a film you hope your "progressive" neighbor will go see to get their derailed thinking back on track — even if you don't get around to seeing it yourself.

By the way, a tale that takes 900 pages to tell won't fit in two hours. Or even three. Thus, as O-Rourke put it, "The movie’s title carries the explicit threat of a sequel."

Let's hope P.J. reviews the sequel as well.

Best of the Web

So we're agreed?
House Speaker John Boehner did his best, if unintentional, Yogi Berra impersonation yesterday after Democrats announced they had reached a compromise on cuts to this year's budget.

Boehner said: “There is no agreement on numbers and nothing will be agreed to until everything is agreed to.”

Rejected
Have you started your file of rejection letters yet? If your manuscript has been turned down, you're in good company.

Twelve publishing houses rejected J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter. But one publisher, Scholastic, recognized the potential and agreed to publish it. Sales of her books topped 400 million copies in less than 15 years and she became a billionaire.

John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected by 16 publishers. But in the last two decades, Grisham's 25 novels have sold 250 million copies.

Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times. It went on to win the Newberry Medal.

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen received 134 rejections for Chicken Soup for the Soul. But when a publisher finally took a chance on it, the book became a runaway best-seller. Additional titles followed. After 15 years, Chicken Soup for the Soul brand had sold 112 million books and raked in more than $2 billion.

Best of the Web
If you haven't discovered James Taranto's witty "Best of the Web Today" column on the Wall Street Journal site, let me be the first to recommend it. A sampling:

Metaphor Alert
"Even 7.5% unemployment means 11.5 million Americans without jobs. The human cost of that dry statistic can be detailed in a canvas of broken hopes and shattered lives." — Mitt Romney, USA Today, March 31

Dey Got a Point
"Dem Losers Still Blaming Nancy Pelosi" — headline, Politico.com, March 30

Questions Nobody Is Asking
* "Leaping Sea Creatures: Do We Need Bigger Boats?" — headline, CNN.com, March 30
* "What Was the New York Times Magazine Like 100 Years Ago?" — headline, Slate.com, March 30

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
* "Why You Should Care About Cricket" — headline, ESPN website, March 28

Bottom Stories of the Day
* "Jon Huntsman Snags Endorsement of Sam Brownback's Campaign Manager" — headline, DailyCaller.com, March 31
* "Kucinich to Deliver Hour-Long Speech on Libya" — headline, RollCall.com, March 30

Headline doesn't cut it

The Fox News website has a banner headline:
"GOP: FREEZE DOESN'T MAKE THE CUT"

Wrong idiom. "Doesn't make the cut" means to move to a higher, more exclusive level. An athlete at the Olympic trials who is selected for the team "makes the cut."

The Fox editor should have written: "GOP: FREEZE DOESN'T CUT IT"
If something doesn't cut it, it falls short or is not good enough.

Republicans weren't auditioning the president's ideas for a place on their agenda, they were evaluating his economic plan.

LeConfused

LeBron James scored 38 points in three quarters to lead his new team, the Miami Heat, to a blowout victory over his former team, the Cleveland Cavs, Thursday night. It was LeBron's first game against his former team in Cleveland, and his former fans booed every time he touched the ball. After the game, an interviewer asked: “The fans had their say tonight. What would you like to say to them if you could?”

"Seven great years, loved every part, loved every moment, from the growth when I was an 18-year-old kid to a 25-year-old man. You know, trying our best as a team, trying our best to bring a championship to this city and just trying to play hard every night. I've got the utmost respect for this franchise, utmost respect for these fans and, you know, just continue the greatness for myself here in Miami and try to get better every day."

Huh? The sports commentators immediately pounced on Lebron's reference to his "greatness." But I haven't heard anyone comment on the fact that his answer was incoherent. Or that he apparently thought he was in Miami.

Deadline oopses

My friend Frank brought in a yellowed copy of the Nov. 22, 1963, issue of The Paducah Sun-Democrat. You surely know that date. The banner headline — printed in red, six columns, two lines, all caps above the nameplate — is:
KENNEDY IS ASSASSINATED; LYNDON JOHNSON PRESIDENT.

The Sun-Democrat was then an evening newspaper, making it possible to publish the story the day it happened.

But the inside pages were apparently already on the plates before the AP wired the story. On page 7 of the same issue was a story with this headline:
Republicans Get Head Start On 1964 Political Campaign Against Kennedy.

Oops.

To make matters worse, the story quotes Republican leaders in the Senate blasting JFK.
New York's Jacob Javits: "Things have gone from bad to worse."
Texas' John Tower: "Our international standing has clipped low, indeed."
Illinois' Everett Dirksen: "(JFK is) engaging in dangerous economic brinkmanship."
Indiana's Charles Halleck: "... almost total failure ... for three empty years."

Darn those deadlines.

By the way, do you remember what two noted authors' deaths were barely noted in the press because they occurred on the same day?

Coaches Chizik and Childress

In a press conference a few days ago, Auburn head football coach Gene Chizik said something other than what he meant to say amid allegations against his star player, quarterback Cam Newton.

Chizik: "I'm standing up here on a very important week trying to defend something that's pure garbage."
That's a harsh way to describe your star player. Maybe he meant he was trying to defend AGAINST something — the allegations — he considers pure garbage (and is "pure garbage" an oxymoron?).

He also said, "I want to get off the table up front the fact that Cameron Newton will be playing Saturday against the Georgia Bulldogs. I want to get that off the table."
The idiom "off the table" means to remove from consideration. What Chizik said, and repeated, is that playing Newton is NOT one of his options. Of course, he meant the opposite. What Chizik took off the table was the option of forcing Newton to sit out the game.

If Chizik says the opposite of what he means, another coach makes statements that tell you absolutely nothing — but at least he uses big words to say it. Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress said this of trading Randy Moss: "It was a programmatic nonfit, and it didn't work out. When things don't work out, you need to move quickly to take steps."
Programmatic nonfit? Why not "he didn't fit in"?
"Move quickly to take steps"? That literally means hurry to make incremental change — not an apt description of booting Moss.

Neologisms defined

Neologisms

Definitions to the neologisms I listed in the last post:

Alpha geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
Chainsaw consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.
Cube farm: An office filled with cubicles.
Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them (e.g. professional wresting).
Mediocracy: A society or organization in which people of mediocre talent prevail
Meetnik: A person who enjoys meetings and seminars and tries to attend as many as possible.
Mouse potato: A couch potato whose attention is riveted to a computer rather than a TV.
Phobosopher: A person with an irrational aversion to wisdom.
Starter marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids and no regrets.
Stress puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
Tree ware: Printed material.

Neologisms

A neologism is a new word, expression or phrase. Sometimes a neologism will make it into the dictionary. Other times it is in vogue only for a season then fades into disuse.

Following are some neologisms, mostly from the 1990s, that didn't make it into common usage. See if you can guess the definitions (no Google searches). Hint: Most have to do with office work.

Alpha geek
Blamestorming
Chainsaw consultant
Cube farm
Irritainment
Mediocracy
Meetnik
Mouse potato
Phobosophers
Starter marriage
Stress puppy
Tree ware

The wit and witless

This weekend kicks off the college football season. To celebrate, here's another sampling of the wit and witless of the coaching world.

From incoherent:
“These guys are missing one thing, and that's experience. Until you've been out on the field, it's tough to simulate that.” — Houston Nutt
(So go onto the field where it will be easy to simulate experience.)

“The biggest thing, ... was getting here at 7 o'clock Sunday morning from Southern California after a 70-whatever whipping to get to the point where your team went from a whipped, terrible look to having a chance to win as good as Alabama was. That gave us a lot of hope. Build off that. Correct those mistakes. Now go win a game. That's where you see the parallels. I believe that.” — Houston Nutt
(To someone somewhere, something in there might make sense.)

To humorous:
"If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot." — Dean Smith

"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it." — Lou Holtz

To wise:
"Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve." — Tom Landry

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." — Vince Lombardi

"Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good." — Joe Paterno

"People of medicore ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to." — George Allen

To inspirational:
"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious." -- Vince Lombardi

And just for fun, this from the writer Jack Handy:
“I remember that one fateful day when Coach took me aside. I knew what was coming. 'You don't have to tell me,' I said. 'I'm off the team, aren't I?' 'Well,' said Coach, 'you never were really ON the team. You made that uniform you're wearing out of rags and towels, and your helmet is a toy space helmet. You show up at practice and then either steal the ball and make us chase you to get it back, or you try to tackle people at inappropriate times.' It was all true what he was saying. And yet, I thought something is brewing inside the head of this Coach. He sees something in me, some kind of raw talent that he can mold. But that's when I felt the handcuffs go on.”

Here lies a liar

I can't remember where I obtained the little pocket-size book, "Everybody's Book of Epitaphs: Being for the Most Part What the Living Think of the Dead." But it is entertaining to read the epitaphs found on tombstones in English cemeteries.

Like this one from the Berkeley Churchyard:

Here lies an editor!
Snooks, if you will;
In Mercy, Kind Providence,
Let him lie still!
He lied for his living, so
He lived while he lied.
When he could not lie longer
He lied down and died.

A number of tombstones carry variations of a bitter widow's lament:

He lied while he lived
And dead he lies still

And a few widowers got their shots in, like this one from Selby, Yorkshire:

Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and shrew,
If I said I regretted her, I should lie too!

Kids

Kids' ears

Sometimes what we say is not what they hear. The following comments are taken from a thread on a friend's Facebook page:

Gavin told me that his bus driver told him that they sit in "science seats." It took me just a second to realize that she was discussing assigned seats on the bus! Funny boy.

Josh referred listening to "Rap City" instead of Rhapsody today ... those 5 year olds!

When Kathleen was in kindergarten, she told me that she learned about gutters in school — the ones that cows have.

Heidi once had a guest speaker in her Lutheran school classroom tell the story of Bert the Troll. The mother of a boy with a speech impediment marched into her classroom the next day demanding to know why she was teaching fourth graders about birth control.

Speaking of kids

Did you catch the story in The Paducah Sun about the students instructing the instructors? Teachers at Heath High School will attend sessions on how to use their new iBook computers. The instructors will be high school students.

Hope the student-teachers are patient. The brains of geezers (all those over 30) just aren't as pliable as brains of teens.

There was a grammarian

James Kilpatrick died Aug. 15, three months shy of his 90th birthday. He was best known for his conservative commentary in newspaper columns and on the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of 60 Minutes. After the death of his wife, sculptor Marie Louise Perri, in 1997, he married liberal columnist Marianne Means. It would have been a gas to sit in on their dinner conversation.

Later in life he became better known as a grammarian. He wrote a column on English usage called "The Writer's Art," as well as a book with the same title. His books also included "The Ear is Human: A Handbook of Homophones and Other Confusions" and "Fine Print: Reflections on the Writing Art."

Here's a sample of his writing on language from a June 2008 column, selected because it echoes one of the constant nags of Sun executive editor Duke Conover:

"In the writing game, everybody has to have an irk. Am I being fastidious or merely fussy in my irk against 'there'? A few weeks ago The New York Times' editorial writers backed repeatedly into their morning lectures.
"'There is a lot of talk that Sen. Hillary Clinton is now fated ... There is a lot that Senators Clinton and Obama need to be talking about ...' 'There is no doubt that President Robert Mugabe's henchmen have used ...'
"The yawing or introductory 'there' is an ancient device, not to be condemned out of hand. All the same, a sentence often will be improved by backing up and starting over: 'Some observers contend that Sen. Hillary Clinton ...' Or, 'Senators Clinton and Obama need to talk about ...' Let us trim our shrubbery."

Duke would take it a bit further. He doesn't like "there" anywhere. If you write, "The team is not there yet," he will ask, "Not where yet?"

I admit I'm not so rigid about "there." But then, I have that luxury. Duke is herding cats. I am not. So I take refuge in Kilpatrick's words: "The yawing or introductory 'there' is an ancient device, not to be condemned out of hand." Duke, of course, would emphasize: "... a sentence will often be improved by backing up and starting over."

We agree, however, that your writing will be improved if you avoid "there" where possible.

Amusing, awful and artificial

King James II of England, when he saw the restored and expanded St. Paul's Cathedral, called it "amusing, awful and artificial." The architect, Sir Christopher Wren, was not offended. On the contrary, he was flattered.

The king did not mean that it was funny or entertaining. He was not calling it atrocious or appalling. He did not consider it fake or pretentious.

In 17th century England, amusing meant "riveting." Awful meant "full of awe" or "awe inspiring." And artificial meant "artistic."

Language evolves and word meaning changes over time through common usage. In this case, words that once had positive meaning gradually devolved. That process is called perjoration.

It doesn't always take four centuries. The word "OK" has undergone more rapid perjoration. Although the etymology is debated, it is clear from its usage a century ago that, when used as an adjective, "OK" was once strong praise. If something was OK, or okay, that meant it was good in every aspect — perfect or "all correct." Today, when we say something is "OK" we mean it is mediocre, or far from perfect.
If we could assign letter grades to OK, it was once an A+, but now it's a C-.

"How was your trip?"
"It was OK."
"Oh, what went wrong?"

So when Oklahoma put the slogan "Oklahoma is OK" on its license plates, it was not lamenting the state's mediocrity but proclaiming that everything about the state was right.

The use of OK to mean assent or agreement now exceeds its use as an adjective. When we say "OK," we are agreeing to something asked of us. Put a question mark after it, and it is asking for someone else's assent.

"Everyone pitch in, OK?" (Meaning: Will you do it? Do you understand? Is that acceptable?)
"OK." (Meaning: Yes. We Understand. We will do it.)

Use of OK as a modifier may fall out of use altogether before it reaches the grade of F.

———

Back to Christopher Wren. He is buried in a crypt at St. Paul's. His modest burial marker reads: "Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice" which means: "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you."

One of the world's largest cathedrals — how's that for a headstone?

Observations

Random observations on usage:
1. A defense attorney commenting on an obscenity written on the nail of Lindsay Lohan’s middle finger during her trial that an alert Reuters photographer picked up: “This tops the cake.”
I assume the attorney meant "takes the cake," an idiom that means "is the most extreme example." Of course, it's possible the attorney meant what she said. A cake topper is the final piece, the focal point.

2. The Fox News Website briefly posted this headline: “Missing Missouri Girl Found Safe at Car Warsh.”
Now, now, no need to poke fun of the way Midwesterners talk.

3. MSNBC headline in April:
"LAW MAKES IT A CRIME TO BE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT"
I may have posted that before. Originally I thought it was an editor's goof, but given the debate over Arizona's law, it may have been an editorial comment. In practice, it is not illegal to be illegal.

4. An AP story on immigration included this sentence: “The law requires officers ... to question a person’s immigration status if there’s a reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally.”

The plural pronoun "they" doesn't match the singular antecedent "person."
Some English teachers go apoplectic over such usage. The singular "they" is widespread in spoken English. But it also has a long history in written English.

The Chicago Manual of Style notes:

On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun ("he" in reference to no one in particular). On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use "they" as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers.

With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual revised its neutral stance to recommend "singular use of they and their," noting a "revival" of this usage and citing its "venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare."

Singular "they" and "their" can be used in most writing to indicate indeterminacy in regard to number — "Anyone willing to give up their seat will receive a refund"; or regarding gender — "Every homeowner must care for their own property."

If you aren't comfortable with any of the three options — singular masculine pronouns, joined masculine/feminine pronouns, or plural pronouns — just do what we do all the time in the news business: Write around it.

Rejection

Have you ever received a rejection letter? If so, you know it stings, even when it makes clear that the publisher has not bothered to read a word of your writing. But how would you like to receive this letter a publisher sent to Zane Grey?

"You've wasted enough of our time with your junk. Why don't you go back to filling teeth? You can't write, you never could write, and you never will be able to write."

Ouch.

Pearl Zane Grey was indeed a dentist, having attended Ivy League Penn on a baseball scholarship.

He deserved that letter. His early writing was full of grammatical errors and stilted writing. He self-published his first novel. Harper's rejected four of his novels in a row. The publisher told him, "I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction."

But Grey had something — or rather someone — in his favor: his wife Dolly. She edited his work, correcting his errors, and gradually Grey's writing improved. Dolly also worked as his manager/agent.

As a young man, Grey read Owen Wister's "The Virginian," the inspiration for many a western writer. It became a template for his novels.

Eventually, he published 90 books, selling 40 million copies. He and Dolly split the proceeds 50/50. Film studios produced more than 100 films of his stories. He mostly wrote westerns, but he also penned books on hunting, fishing and baseball. He also wrote six children's books. His best-known and best-selling book was Riders of the Purple Sage.

Grey never achieved critical acclaim but enjoyed considerable commercial success. And Harper's, the publisher that had rejected all his early works, eventually became Grey's publisher, making millions off his work.

Zane Grey is a case study in perseverance.

Gurley Martin

In this week's KET debate among the four Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, viewers were introduced to 86-year-old candidate Gurley Martin, a World War II veteran and birther who posted his own birth certificate on his campaign website. Martin is a conspiracist who says every president since 1928 except Ronald Reagan moved the country toward one-world government. And he says Barack Obama is not a legal American citizen.

Martin made the most unexpected and weirdly memorable statement of the one-hour debate when he waxed nostalgic over public executions when asked if he supported the death penalty:

"The death penalty is a learning tool. When I was less than 5 years old I witnessed the legal hanging of a white man for the rape of a white woman on the courthouse square in Ohio County. People came from everywhere, and the crime wave went down immediately."

While the positions of the leading candidates in modern elections are so carefully crafted that you can hardly distinguish one from another, the fringe candidates are the ones who provide the spice on the campaign trail.

And I'll give this to Martin — he speaks in complete sentences. That's rare among politicians.

This is Kentucky and this is Kentucky Derby weekend and this is a newspaper, or at least an online version of a newspaper, so it's appropriate to recognize — celebrate is too strong a word — the 40th birthday of gonzo journalism. The late Hunter S. Thompson, a Louisville native credited with birthing gonzo, created the new style of journalism at the 1970 Kentucky Derby, with a story entitled "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved." Thompson covered the event for a British sports magazine accompanied by the illustrator Ralph Steadman, whose drawings combined whimsy and vulgarity with only incidental connection to reality, much the same as Thompson's writing.

Gonzo journalism blends fact and fantasy, and it places the writer's experience at the center of the story. The modifiers he applied to the spectacle of the derby, then, necessarily applied to himself as well.

He wrote: "It's a fantastic scene — thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whiskey bottles." Not quite wide brim hats and mint juleps.

Gonzo journalism is an oxymoron. Though entertaining and readable, gonzo violates the inviolable rules of journalism: A journalist must report facts, leaving out his own opinions, and he must remain outside the story as a detached observer. In gonzo, facts are optional. And the writer is the subject and star of the story. It is the ultimate expression of narcissism.

Some might argue that the act of suicide is the ultimate expression of narcissism. If so, Thompson had that covered too. He shot himself in the head in 2005, four decades after a trip to Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate the reasons behind Ernest Hemingway's suicide for a magazine piece Thompson was writing.

Thompson's suicide note, entitled "Football Season Is Over," read:
"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt."

Still putting himself at the center of the story.

Thompson's best known work was "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Although never a household name, he had a devoted following that included many Hollywood stars, as well as the cartoonist Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury, who patterned his character Uncle Duke after Thompson. As Trudeau's tribute to the writer following his death, a Doonesbury strip shows Duke learning of Thompson's death after which his own head explodes.

MSNBC blooper

A headline destined for Leno appeared on the screen yesterday at MSNBC:
"LAW MAKES IT A CRIME TO BE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT"

Sounds like Yogi Berra has found a new gig writing news.