The cutline reads: The documentary was filmed over three years. Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall. Which propelled University of Pennsylvania sociologist Jeff Weintraub to ask: Were Merle & Kris & Robert ever actually married? What the caption writer neglected, of course, was the serial comma, the one that comes (or is omitted) after "crackle" in "snap, crackle, and pop." When left out of a sentence, this tiny mark sometimes seeks revenge by sneaking up on a unwary writer and landing a devastating blow. In a similar, but more famous example, perhaps apocryphal, a book dedication implied a...

24 October, 2010

Contrarian reader Denis Falvey demurs: Heroism is not the same thing as sainthood; it doesn't mean doing the impossible, it means doing that which is in the finest nature of being human. Sully demonstrated the determination, willingness, and ability to apply his considerable skill and training under extreme pressure, with courage, grace, and hope, engendering these qualities in those around him, to succeed where others would probably have failed He behaved as we would all wish to - in the finest character of humanity, and with no apparent thought for headlines. That's not luck....

20 October, 2010

Patrick Smith, pilot-columnist at Salon, chides the media for cheapening the currency of heroism in the US Airways Hudson River ditching: Moneyquote: This is tough for the networks to work with, I know, but Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger and his first officer, for all their guts and talent, weren't heroes so much as the luckiest pilots in the world. If fate decrees that your engines are to become choked with geese with no chance of reaching an airport, by all means let it happen in daylight, in reasonably good weather, overhead a smoothly flowing river alongside a major city. Change even one of...

19 October, 2010

Where do refugees come from? Where do they go? Which countries produce the most refugees? Which countries take the most in? Christian Behrens, a German designer who studied at Concordia, answers those questions visually with a series of interactive infographics that grew out of a Potsdam University of Applied Sciences class project on mapping global tendencies. Based on the annual Refugee Report of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the graphic lets us look at refugee flows from several different perspectives. Which country took in the most refugees in 2008? The US? Nope. Canada? Not even close. Pakistan tops the list, at...

18 October, 2010

Elliot Row, Saint John, New Brunswick. Photo by Gillian Barfoot....

18 October, 2010

Benoît Mandelbrot, 85, the iconoclastic mathematician who coined the term fractal and helped inject the digital revolution with creative artistry, died last Thursday at his home in Cambridge, Madssachusetts. Here, in a TED talk, he talks about his work: ...

18 October, 2010

Growing discomfort with the military commission trial of Canadian child soldier Omar Khadr, the only western national still held in the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has apparently propelled the US government to seek a plea bargain in the case. The presiding military judge delayed the trial this week in anticipation of a possible deal. Why now? The Toronto Star's Michelle Sheppard reported Thursday that Omar Khadr's pending trial "has caused discomfort among some of Obama’s advisers, who are concerned about the fact that he was 15 at the time of the alleged offence." Friday's edition of the New York Times,...

14 October, 2010

Most of us know, intellectually, that standard Mercator projection maps grossly distort the relative sizes of countries. In particular, the world maps we most often use exaggerate the size of first world, northern-hemisphere countries like Canada, the USA, and the nations of Europe, while under-representing the size of third-world countries clustered around the equator. But do we grasp this distortion in any visceral sense? Quite the contrary: Each time we look at a distorting world map, we are subliminally reinforced in the prejudice that we're big, and they're small. GUI-designer Kai Krause strikes a blow against what he calls immappancy with this...

14 October, 2010

.. .. Chiquita Brands International, successor to the United Fruit Company, a cartel whose imperialist policies in Latin America gave life to the term banana republic (coined by O. Henry), has revealed the winners in its contest to replace the company's iconic fruit sticker. Here are Contrarian's favorites: . . . ...

10 October, 2010
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