Friday, March 8, 2013

international women's day, buffalo, capes

Today is International Women's Day. My undergrad congratulated me this morning; indeed, congratulations to all the women reading this. My FB has been filled with various related items, but my favorite would be the quote appearing on the Field Museum t. rex Sue's FB page, "I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory."  -Marie Curie

A BBC article regarding candidates for the papacy here.

In a recent conversation with a friend, the term 'to buffalo someone' came up. It means to trick someone about something. i speculated as to the origin of the term (likening it to a wolf in sheep's clothing) but i was totally wrong: according to this article, "
As white settlers moved west, they began to hunt the animal for skins to sell in eastern markets.
The American buffalo could run at the speed of almost seventy-five kilometers an hour.  It was not easy to get close enough to them to shoot.
Sometimes the hunters were completely unsuccessful in killing any of the animals.  They were "buffaloed" by these powerful, speedy creatures who were so hard to control.  The expression "to buffalo" soon became part of the speech of the American west.  It meant to make someone helpless, to trick them.  In the early nineteen hundreds, a story about attacks on white settlers moving into Indian territory explained, "The Sioux had the wagon-train surrounded and the soldiers buffaloed." "
The search for the origin also kicked up this rather amazing wikipedia article:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo


The Sartorialist posted this picture today, of a man in a cape. i linked it to Holly, who immediately returned this Seinfeld clip.  We attempted to come up with captions:

me:  "Despite retirement, the super villain still retained vestiges of his former wardrobe."
 Holly:  though he could not fly, David liked the public to believe he could

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