Pity the Moray Eel! February 21, 2013 LADY MONDEGREEN Thanks to Mark Plotkin for this ultimate book of mondegreens wherein is revealed the term’s derivation: a 1954 piece in the Atlantic by a woman who had misheard “they had slain the Earl of Moray/and laid him on the green” for “they had slain the Earl of Moray/and Lady Mondegreen.” Apparently, the introduction to this book of 275 mondegreens tells us, a great many mondegreens involve food or animals or other basic, primal things our brain jumps to. Sounds a bit silly pop-psych to me . . . except that, come to think of it, my own mondegreen in place of Lady Gaga’s “can’t read my, can’t read my” was . . . “cherry pie, cherry pie.” GREAT 30-SECOND SPOT It’s for the Kindle. How the world has changed since books were books and . . . well, you’ll see. I shake my head in grateful wonder.. Here. PLAN AHEAD Oh. My. God. Thanksgiving and Chanukah fall on the same day this year, November 28. This last happened in . . . never? (Try to Google it to find out and you realize you need joint PhDs in math, astronomy, and Hebrew to make the calculation.) (And I know one of you has them and will.) SEQUESTRATION The thing is — having shifted sharply in the other direction for the last three decades — we need to shift the emphasis from personal consumption back a bit (just a bit) to public consumption for a decade or two. Bigger houses and more TV’s are nice; faster power boats and granite counter tops are nice. But so are bridges and highways that work . . . waterways that are deep enough . . . subways that are comfortable . . . levees that withstand storms . . . sewage systems that handle the load . . . great public schools and universities . . . groundbreaking research that make lives better and keep our economy competitive . . . clean air and water . . . energy efficiency . . . and things like these are largely public expenditures, funded not by credit cards at Home Depot but by checks mailed in to the IRS. Our Republican friends are determined NOT to put people back to work doing the work that so badly needs doing to keep our nation strong and get our economy humming again: that would require tax revenue (because public spending is paid for with tax revenue or bond issues serviced by tax revenue). Instead, they are working hard to “cut the deficit.” But that will cause a recession, and a recession will increase the deficit. And bridges that may cost X to repair now will cost 20X to rebuild after they’ve collapsed (a number I’ve pulled out of thin air, that may or may not include the cost of millions of hours wasted in the months or years of detours and traffic jams that will result). Write your Republican congressperson and make this point?