Entry #1510

Roger Ebert on the origins of the term “Ping Pong”. Here’s his review of Christopher Walken’s new movie, Balls of Fury.

Yesterday I linked to an Orcinus blog post where Dave mentions that because chinook salmon in Washington are so scarce, pods of Puget Sound killer whales are showing up in California. Today there’s a story that indicates the orcas may end up going hungry there as well.

Orcas on the edge.

Scientific American shows us how we can avoid being duped by the media by learning about two logical fallacies called the Straw Man and the Weak Man arguments.

Stop crying and say “cheese”.

Pet Corner: The bubble buddy makes bacon flavored bubbles for your dog to play with.

Comments

[ezgrl]

'ping pong' may be a registered trademark of a well=known american game maker but it is also the literal transliteration of the sound of the two characters that make up the actual word in chinese. i was very happy to see the characters for ping pong featured correctly in the film and a general growing sophistication in the cartoon world where chinese characters are no longer depicted as simply senseless scribbles. i imagine this has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of animation is done in asia and they simply won't stand for that nonsense anymore. but i digress...Balls of Fury... what about those kinky male consorts [my ten year old companion mercifully did not ask me about them] and what is going on with Christopher Walken.

[John Emerson]

Since 10 of the last 15 pingpong champions have come from nations where the official name of the sport is "pingpong", I don't think that the Americans should whine. In fact, there hasn't been a men's world champion from the U.S. in the history of the tournament (beginning in 1926); an American was the woman's champion in 1936 and 1937.

I'm not even sure that the purely English origin of the word can be assured. There were already Chinese in England and Englishmen in China in 1823, and pingpong is a perfectly normal Chinese onomapoetic binome, whereas it's a sort of odd, cutesy, childish English word. Maybe that's why the Chinese take the sport more seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Table_Tennis_Champions

[Adrian]

I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.

Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate’s stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates’ fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates’ views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come…you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.

[pablo]

On a different subject,

I'm a little astonished that mug shots like these can be released. At the time they are taken the people are not convicted of any crime. They've just been picked up and maybe accused, but I'd think the innocent until proven guilty umbrella would allow them to keep their privacy. Or are these pictures of people who were subsequently convicted?