Cowboy Who?

Let’s face it, students: sometimes in the middle of writing an essay, you realize your thesis doesn’t quite have the “legs” you thought it did. You might find that you’re only able to write 10 pages, when you’ve been instructed to write 20. Not to worry — there are many subtle tricks you can use to stretch that essay out. Your professor will be none the wiser.

1. The Classic “Big Punctuation” Trick
You’re probably writing your essay in size-12 text. Here’s a classic trick: make all your periods, commas, and exclamation points size-13 text. You’ll be surprised at how much this inflates your page count, and the change in text size will be too subtle for your professor to notice.

2. Long Quotations
There’s no better way to stretch that page count than by including a full paragraph of quotations on nearly every page.

3. Use Small Paper
Sure, your essay may only be 10 pages, but that’s on standard 8” x 11” paper. Print your essay on 4” x 5.5” paper instead. It sounds crazy, but this will actually double your page count, and your professor will never notice.

4. The “Double Articles” Trick
Read the following sentence:

“Among a pantheon of literature exploring 20th-century Indian diaspora, perhaps the the most essential is Bharati’s Mukherjeet’s work beginning in 1971 with…”

Now looker closer — you probably didn’t even notice that the word “the” appears back-to-back. The human brain is conditioned to “correct” this mistake without even realizing it. Double up your “the’s” and watch that paper grow before your very eyes!

5. The “Five Diasporas” Trick
Read the following sentence:

“Among a pantheon of literature exploring 20th-century Indian diaspora diaspora diaspora diaspora diaspora, perhaps the most essential is Bharati’s Mukherjeet’s work beginning in 1971.”

You probably didn’t even notice that the word “diaspora” is written back-to-back five times. This is the classic “five diasporas” trick.

6. Eulogize Everybody
A great little trick to expand that page count is to briefly eulogize any deceased figure mentioned in the essay. It works especially well if you only mention people who have passed away. Example:

“Pioneers in the field of astrophysics include Carl Sagan (rest in peace), Stephen Hawking (gone but not forgotten), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (still hard to believe he’s gone), Jerry E. Nelson (we love you brother) and Annie Jump Cannon (damn…)”

7. The “Guess What?” Trick
A subtle way to eke out a few extra pages is to preface all your facts, arguments, and observations with the phrase “Guess what?” Example:

“The capitalist ideal is a system in which every person’s potential to prosper is relative to their work ethic. Guess what? I will now refute this by examining Marx’s notion of pauperism. Guess what? Karl Marx was born in Germany in 1818…”

Your professor will not notice this.

8. The “Mama Mia!” Maneuver
Similar to the “Guess What?” trick, you can pad an essay by punctuating all your facts, arguments, and observations with the phrase “Mama mia!” Not only will this make your paper longer, but it will also help to really drive things home. Example:

BQ. “Studies show that a rise in global temperatures has melted roughly 80% of the Earth’s icebergs since 1910. Mama mia! Climate scientists predict that Arctic ice may be completely melted by 2050. MAMA MIA!!!”

9. Include an Intermission
Still falling short of that page count? Including an intermission is a time-tested classic. In the middle of your essay, instruct your professor to take a brief intermission. Include 20-30 blank pages at this point, giving your professor time to stretch their legs, use the bathroom, smoke a cigarette, etc. You’ll be amazed at how much 20-30 pages of blank space can stretch your page count. Sometimes it can be up to 30 pages.

10. Spell Out Numbers
An easy way to get some extra length is to spell out numbers. The more numbers you can squeeze in, the better. Compare the following paragraphs:

“James K. Polk was born in 1795 and would go on to become the 11th President of the United States in 1844.”

versus:

“James K. Polk was born in seventeen ninety-five and would go on to become the eleventh president of the United States (of which there are fifty) in eighteen forty-four at the age of forty-nine, succeeding the tenth president John Tyler (born seventeen-ninety) and preceding the twelfth president, Zachary Tyler (the first), who was elected in eighteen forty-nine, forty-seven years after the War of Eighteen-Twelve.”

11. Translate It Into Spanish
At the end of your short essay, explain that you will now translate it into Spanish so that Spanish-speaking readers may enjoy it as well. Re-writing your entire essay into a different language and including the foreign translation in the master document is a quick way to watch that page count double. You can translate it into other languages, too — just keep going until you hit the page minimum.

12. The Psych-Out
Get some extra mileage out of your essay by dedicating several pages to arguing the exact opposite of your thesis, then say: “NOT! The exact opposite is true” and invert everything you’ve just written. Example:

“…In conclusion, the Industrial Revolution had no impact on the civilized world whatsoever. NOT! The exact opposite is true. Let us now explore the impact the Industrial Revolution had on the civilized world.”

13. The “Opposite Day” Switcheroo
Argue the opposite of your thesis for several pages, then say, “…On OPPOSITE DAY.” This is basically the same as the “Psych-Out,” but I needed to stretch this list out a little.

14. Number Your Pages With Roman Numerals
You may be able to “sneak one by” your professor by numbering your pages in Roman numerals. If they’re unfamiliar with the Roman numeral system, they won’t even be able to tell how many pages your paper is. Note that this will not work if they are a professor of Latin, or know how to count.

15. Change Your Thesis In the Middle of the Essay
Has your thesis run out of steam by page 5? You can go ahead and change to a different thesis at any point. Example:

“At this juncture, I am actually realizing I have a better thesis than the one I’ve laid out in the previous five pages. Let us now pivot to this new thesis and explore it in depth.”

It’s okay to do this a bunch of times. I have written thesis papers with over 20 different theses in them.

16. Accuse Your Professor of Losing A Bunch of the Pages
If all else fails, you can turn in your way-too-short essay as is, then when your professor reprimands you for failing to meet the page-minimum, insist that the professor must have lost a bunch of the pages. Furthermore, you can tell your professor, “Aw man, those pages you lost had all the best parts, too.” This works 100% of the time.

We should try being OPTIMISTS! Woo!!!

Tonight's comic is about the most optimistic thing you can do.

I watched too much America's Next Top Model growing up...

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Harvested by oppressed minorities overseas!

BAHFest Tickets are on sale for Houston and London!

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And give me the largest greenest carbonated beverage God will suffer to exist.

Screenshot of Erin L. Thompson’s tweet about a sculpture listed as stolen, which appeared in a Dallas Museum of Art Exhibit.

Erin L. Thompson, Associate Professor of Art Crime at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), penned an article last Friday, January 24 in Hyperallergic stating that the Lakshmi-Narayana (elsewhere described as Vasudeva-kamalaja) statue, on long-term loan to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), is a stolen artifact from Nepal.

No stranger to the reality that pieces like these could be in its encyclopedic collection or on loan, the DMA has previously returned works to their home countries: Turkey, in 2012, as well as some Greek and Etruscan pieces the following year. The DMA is not alone in this.

Thompson’s article breaks down the DMA story like this: Artist Joy Lynn Davis, who paints photorealistic images of stolen deities from Nepal, did an image search of the Lakshmi-Narayana after it was highlighted by Nepali writer and activist Kanak Mani Dixit as one that meant the most to him. Her Google image search flagged the statue (which Davis knew had been stolen from a temple in Kathmandu in 1984) in a blog post featuring works at the DMA. The statue was on view around November 2019, and was removed from view in December, after Thompson’s twitter post (see pic at top).

Thompson revealed in her article, and in an interview with Glasstire, that the statue had been put on long-term loan at the DMA dating back to 1990. It had been purchased that same year at Sotheby’s New York on March 22 by a collector named David T. Owsley, “a prominent collector of antiquities and long-time patron of the Dallas Art Museum.”

Screen Shot From Erin L. Thompson’s Twitter Account.

In her interview with Glasstire, Thompson stated: “My larger concern, which I hope comes through in my article, is that there could be so many more sacred sculptures stolen from Nepal, or antiquities in American Museums where we don’t happen to have this clear of evidence of theft.” She continues: “And we need to as museums do better in trying to figure out where the objects come from. The Metropolitan Museum of Art last year had to give back a golden sarcophagus from Egypt because they bought it with faked passport paperwork.”

Image courtesy Erin L. Thompson

“Most reputable American museums belong to either the American Association of Museums or the American Association of Museum Directors, which have guidelines to regulate new acquisitions of antiquities,” Thompson states. (The new guidelines were enacted in 2008.) And while those regulations prohibit new acquisitions of questionable provenance, museums don’t have to scrutinize works in their collections or on loan that predate the guidelines. “Museums are in charge of deciding whether or not they have enough paperwork to satisfy that requirement, so there’s nobody looking over their shoulders.”

For its part, the DMA responded on twitter, promising an investigation. In a statement released to Glasstire on January 28, the DMA states that the sculpture has since been removed from exhibition, and the museum is indeed investigating.

The DMA’s full statement reads:

As soon as the DMA was made aware of the recent information with respect to the stele, the Museum began an internal review and research of the object, which was on loan to the DMA from a private collection. The DMA has removed the stele from display while we work with the lender to gather additional information and determine an appropriate and responsible course of action.

The post Art Crime Professor Erin L. Thompson Points to Stolen Statue at Dallas Museum of Art appeared first on Glasstire.

You still buy books on PAPER?

Books take up too much space. Is the alternative worse?

During the 2010s, we millennials were accused of killing everything in our path, from department stores to hotel chains to the institution of marriage.

Our alleged death cry rattled institutions across the world, a murderous rampage against everything from stiletto heels to the American Dream.

Now, we’re here to confess.

We did it.

All of it.

We killed diamonds. We killed golf. We killed countless chain restaurants and luxury travel brands.

We will kill again.

And now we’re coming for you, Wetzel’s Pretzels.

If you thought your family-friendly pretzel chain was safe from our generational massacre, think again.

We have an entitlement for destruction and we will not rest until Wetzel’s Pretzels joins Applebee’s, bar soap, travel agencies, and the Toyota Scion in a mass grave deeper than our student loan debt.

Don’t believe us? Call our bluff. We’ve laughed over the ashes of the Big Mac and the McWrap, and we won’t stop until Wetzel’s head sits alongside Ronald McDonald’s on a spike.

The blood of shopping malls, business casual attire, and light yogurt are on our hands. Hashtag murder.

Fabric sheets won’t soften the calcified pit of hatred lodged deep in our souls because we killed those too.

Wetzel’s Pretzels, your reckoning has come.

You might argue that wage stagnation, higher education costs, and skyrocketing housing prices prevented us from affording things like starter homes or diamonds.

Or that a desire for sustainable, socially conscious brands led us away from legacy chains and processed food.

Well, you’d be WRONG. The shredded menus of Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, and The Cheesecake Factory hang from our slaughter vests, and we’re hungry for more.

So what to do, Wetzel’s? Maybe it’s time to crack open a beer and wait for this to blow over? Too bad. We killed beer.

Time to take a vacation? Watch a football game? We killed both of those.

We will roam the dead grasses of golf courses and college sports arenas. We will take selfies from the backseats of taxi carcasses. We will live-tweet our blood orgy as brick-and-mortar banks, stationery shops, and post offices crumble in our wake.

And you’re next, Wetzel’s. Your obituary will be our Instagram story.

Okay, first of all, I just want to say that all the people calling me a “misogynist” for this are out of their minds, alright? I’ve been a die-hard ally to the women of this colony from day one. I support their right to own property, like spindles and wooden spoons and weird little bonnets. I’ve spoken out against public lashings for wearing shoes below the ankle. I even believe women should be able to cough audibly in church without their husband’s permission. I mean, hey, I liked that Anne Hutchinson chick, before she turned out to be all weird and uppity and got banished from the congregation for heresy (which, let’s be real, she totally had coming). But sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and judge people on a case-by-case basis. And in this particular case, I’m not afraid to say that at least half of the women in our town are straight-up, 100% witches.

There’s been a lot of fuss over my recent accusations of witchcraft against Goody Stewart, our local blacksmith’s wife (and for real, I am SO SAD to accuse her of this stuff because genuinely I REALLY used to like her). But honestly? I don’t think any reasonable person can keep pretending that she’s not aligned with Lucifer at this point. It’s not just me, either — I have a lot of female friends whose opinions I really trust, and at least 6 of them were like, “Oh yeah, Goody Stewart? She’s definitely a witch.” And I’ve always felt so, so strongly that we need to believe women when they share those lived experiences with us. Obviously, women aren’t a monolith, and some women are gonna disagree on things, but, y’know, personally, I feel like I have a pretty good sense of which women to believe and which to not.

I mean, are we really going to ignore when she accused Goodman Fairchild of stealing her set of silver candlesticks? I’ve known him for years, and he is a REALLY nice guy. Seriously, I’ve never heard anyone else have a problem with him, other than a few kinda uptight people who are just looking for stuff to take issue with. But then suddenly she’s all like “Oh yeah, uhhh, he totally stole my mother’s silver candlesticks that I brought over from England for like, no reason”? I just don’t buy it. And the timing is… I mean, I’m not saying that she has an agenda, but it is a little weird that this is happening right after his daughter rejected her son’s marriage proposal. I think we’re all justified in being suspicious of that. And if we can’t trust her about the candlesticks, what else can’t we trust her about? Probably most things, including her not being a witch.

Now, is it true that women get disproportionately and unfairly accused of witchcraft? Absolutely. And it is a huge problem and one that I would totally speak out against in a case where the woman in question didn’t clearly deserve it. But feminism means treating women as equals, including when you’re criticizing them or accusing them of souring the milk of the local dairy cows under the direct instructions of Satan himself. I know you’re going to ask me why I don’t seem to go after men for witchcraft the same way I do women, and all I can say is that coincidences happen. I would LOVE to get behind a virtuous, devout, morally upright woman from this community and tell the world that she is NOT a witch, but things just don’t always shake out that way. Yes, 8 out of 10 people in Massachusetts accused of witchcraft are women, and yes, 10 out of 10 people I’ve accused of witchcraft are women, but you know what? That’s a pretty small sample size. And frankly, I don’t think it’s fair to insinuate that there’s a correlation.

Which brings me to another thing: a lot of you ladies have pointed out that I only ever seem to accuse women of witchcraft after they gain some degree of power or influence in the community. Which like… come on. There are plenty of strong, capable women in this village that I would never accuse of witchcraft, like Goody Morris, who we all know bravely flouts convention by agreeing with all the bold political stances of her husband and father. Not everyone could respect a firebrand like that, but I do. And before you pull out the Anne Hutchinson thing again — ”Ohhhh, Hezekiah, didn’t you say you only respected her before she started standing up to the church?” — all I can say is, everyone learns and grows. I knew Anne wanted to change the status quo; I just didn’t know she was going to go off the deep end and start leading prayer meetings and expressing opinions and being a huge fucking bitch about everything. Like I said: case-by-case basis.

But really, this is what it all comes down to: gender politics are all very well and good, but sometimes we need to prioritize the well-being of our community over these philosophical squabbles. I mean, we are at the very real risk of Satan stealing our souls, turning our fields fallow, corrupting our children, and wreaking havoc on this good, Christian town. Is this really the time to be nitpicky about who we do or don’t burn at the stake? Sometimes you just have to trust your gut when it tells you that your perception of things is the objective truth, even if other people think it’s kind of suspicious that your gut keeps telling you to kill women with fire.

So, I just want to say one last thing to the ladies of this community: I hear you. I trust you. And I stand with you. Except for the half of you that are absolutely, definitely witches.

How to get your cat to do what you want
Eckstein and Eckstein
1991

As a servant to 2 cats, this title just makes me laugh. Of course the subtitle should be “as long as it is what the cat wants”. I get such a kick out of these books. They sound optimistic and sell us on the idea that training cats is easy. Truly, I know cats can be trained to a certain extent.  If you dedicated every waking hour to cat training, you might have something. I remember my Psych 101 class. Although, I would like to point out that there was no mention of Pavlov’s cat.

There really isn’t anything “wrong” with this book, other than it is dated. Books about cats are always popular.  If it is still circulating, by all means keep it.

May all your cat wishes come true,

Mary

The post Cats That Do What You Want appeared first on Awful Library Books.

As the lead recruiter for a large corporation, I have hundreds of cover letters cross my desk daily. People often ask, “Are cover letters still really that important?” Well, the answer is a resounding “YES.” Because, while utterly useless as a job application tool, cover letters are an incredibly important part of building a miniature town made of paper. And that’s really what this has all been about.

I joined this field with a few simple goals: I wanted to help grow the staff of companies by attracting top industry talent. I wanted to foster a working atmosphere that was pleasant and professional. And, like everyone who chooses this line of work, I’m a small-scale hobbyist who wants to build the coolest miniature town made of cover letters anyone has ever seen.

Today, I am pleased to announce that one of these goals is finally within reach.

Our talent management team has fielded thousands of applications during my tenure. Job openings across every department are enticing candidates in numerous disciplines, while cover letters continue to flood my office each day. And although none of those letters has resulted in the hiring of a single employee, they have allowed me to start building a village made entirely out of paper.

Still, I need more.

We employ some of the best recruiters in the country. It is thanks to this group that we are inundated with thoughtful outlines of skills from job seekers all over the world. Personally, I have always felt strongly that no cover letter should be ignored. I know how time-consuming they are to draft and how frustrating it is for candidates to feel that they are merely sending a PDF into the void. That is why I ensure every one of these letters is carefully reviewed, folded, and eventually incorporated into my Victorian or Tudor-style replicas.

After my colleagues have all left for the day, that is when my real work begins. That is when my origami figurines look to me, their God, for answers. Because at night, the village comes alive. When will you build our churches and fire stations? they wonder. We need a public transportation system, they cry. But my dwindling supply of cover letters has not allowed me to keep up with their demands.

You see, a city of this magnitude cannot simply be constructed from just a few sheets of paper. For it takes a great deal of material to erect the infrastructure of a Lilliputian metropolis. That is why I have advertised job openings so aggressively since I began my time here. Because we need thousands of cover letters to form a structure from which I may one day rule my kingdom. Now my stronghold is nearly finished.

Alas, we need more cover letters. For my time to reign draws nigh.

So, beginning this month, we are opening our referral program to the public and offering a generous bonus for any recommendations received. That means if you have friends or colleagues that you feel may be a good fit for one of our posted positions, I would encourage you to have them submit a cover letter (or two, or three) directly to me at their convenience. In fact, just have them forward along as many copies as possible. It doesn’t matter what they do, or have done, or claim they want to do. As long as the integrity of the paper stock can withstand a load-bearing environment, I will find a spot for every bullet point list of relevant experience somewhere within my battlements.

So please do your part to help us keep those cover letters rolling in. Or if you know any Senior Software Engineers with Ruby on Rails experience and a “no task is too small” attitude, we apparently need those too.

New comic!

Samus is more of a shoot-first-and-blow-up-your-planet, befriend-later kind of pal.

“The interview between Mr. Pompeo and the reporter, Mary Louise Kelly, widely circulated after it was published on Friday night. Describing a tense exchange after a taped part of the interview, Ms. Kelly said that Mr. Pompeo shouted at her repeatedly using the ‘f-word’ and challenged her to find Ukraine on an unlabeled map that his aides pulled out, which she did.” — New York Times, 1/25/20

I want to be perfectly clear regarding the events that transpired between myself and NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly the other day.

After our interview, I asked Ms. Kelly to come with me to my office. After voicing my concerns about our interview, I took the next logical step — I told one of my aides to bring me a blank map of the world, and then I demanded that Ms. Kelly point to Ukraine’s location.

There’s been some confusion around this, so I would like to state now, unequivocally, for the record: Yes. I absolutely did have a blank world map on the ready in the next room. And I always do.

Why?

Because I’m fucking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and my house is just chock-full of blank world maps.

Believe me when I say that my house is just absolutely teeming with reams of redacted cartography. My aides fetched a blank map from my office, but they could have gotten one anywhere. Did you look behind the toilet? Maps. In the shoe cabinet? Maps. The top shelf of the refrigerator? Chilly maps.

Keep going. Did you peek behind that creepy oil painting in the hall? Maps. Slice open my mattress? Maps. Pulled the book Map of the World (With Country Names Clearly Labeled) off my library shelf and thought you caught me in a lie? Think again. Open it up. That’s right: it’s hollowed out and filled with adorable teeny-tiny unlabeled world maps.

In the Declaration of Independence, we are promised the right to three things: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For me — and, I suspect, for a lot of regular, everyday Americans — the one single thing that brings us joy is filling our homes with ream after glorious ream of maps where someone has used Wite-Out on all the country names.

I’m a very simple man. Here’s what I love: the shapes of countries. Here’s what I don’t need: any additional fucking information.

And you’re right if you assume that my home’s veritably infinite collection of blank world maps reflects this.

I’m sorry it took this incident for me to say it, but I won’t be silent any longer: I love what countries look like. I hate what they are called. If that makes me a scientist, so be it.

I am who I am. I paid for DNA testing from 23andMe and immediately had the results redacted because it’s none of my fucking business.

When the pilot of the plane announces where we’ll be landing, I plug my ears and scream, “Not for us to know!”

In fourth grade, my teacher stood up at the chalkboard and pulled down a blank world map for all of us to see, and I was like, “Very cool.” Then she pulled down another world map with the names of countries written on it, and I was like, “Absolutely not.”

My father’s father emigrated to our great country from a roundish squiggly country, and my mother’s family came by boat from a squarish area (large). That’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for NPR.

Borders? Yes. Names? Why. Put them together? What the fuck?

Initially, they wanted to make my job title, “Secretary of Kansas.” I said, “That’s way too specific.” And so here we are.

Sometimes I can hear my wife whispering from the mattress-shaped pile of maps she sleeps on now, “There are too many blank world maps in our house, Mike.” And I just sigh and pull my blanket (a bunch of maps stapled together) over my head (the body part that gives me the idea to buy more maps). I love my wife, but sometimes I wish she were like a blank world map (i.e., very quiet and super awesome).

People are always asking me, “Mike Pompeo, what kind of person just has blank world maps lying around at home?” After this incident with Ms. Kelly, I feel like the answer is clear. The first reason is so that I can try and fail to humiliate a professional woman with a Master’s in European studies from Cambridge University who was just calmly trying to do her job with the gnarliest stumper my simple caveman brain can imagine (a 6th-grade geography question).

And the second reason is for coloring.

Career Prep: Working in a Hospital
Miner
1983

Career books are one of those hot button collections that continually give me a twitch when they aren’t current. This one is really out of date with respect to job descriptions and duties. Aimed at middle/high school age, this book covers the myriad of jobs, beyond that of just a doctor or a nurse. The intent of this book isn’t too bad. I like the attempt to show what the day looks like, training needed, and what a particular job is all about. I doubt any of the job titles and descriptions even exist anymore.

Weed and get some new stuff!

Mary

The post Work in a Hospital! appeared first on Awful Library Books.

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Fortunately, most Mad Pseudoscientists spend their time harmlessly trying to affect astrological readings.

Lone Star College-North Harris posted a photo:

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They're just lucky she didn't break the bottle to use the jagged glass as an improvized weapon.