The Evil Deity

After about a month of studying cases, I put to my first term torts students a couple of hypothetical questions. The first concerns an ‘evil deity.’ ‘Suppose,’ I ask my students, ‘such a deity were to appear to you, as president of this country or as controller of our legal system, and offer a gift, a boon, which would make life more pleasant, more enjoyable than it is today. The gift can be anything you want — be as idealistic, or as obscene, or as greedy as you wish — except that it cannot save lives.’ Later I will drop even that requirement. ‘The evil deity suggests that he can deliver this gift in exchange for one thing … the lives of one thousand young men and women picked by him at random who will each year die horrible deaths.’

When I ask, ‘Would you accept?’ my students almost uniformly answer, ‘No.’ Indeed, they are shocked that one could even ask the question. I then ask, quietly, what the difference is between this gift and the automobile, which takes some fifty-five thousand lives each year.

— Guido Calabresi, Ideals, Beliefs, Attitudes, and the Law, 1985

November 8, 2010November 8, 2010 | Society

In a Word

tauromachy
n. the art of bullfighting

November 8, 2010November 8, 2010 | Language

All’s Fair

Literary critic A.N. Wilson panned Bevis Hillier’s 1988 biography of John Betjeman. To get even, Hillier forged a love letter ostensibly written by Betjeman in 1944 and forwarded it to Wilson under the name Eve de Harben (an anagram for “Ever been had?”). Wilson took the bait and included the forged letter in his own biography of Betjeman, which was published in 2005.

Here’s the letter. It contains a hidden message — can you find it?

Darling Honor,

I loved yesterday. All day, I’ve thought of nothing else. No other love I’ve had means so much. Was it just an aberration on your part, or will you meet me at Mrs Holmes’s again — say on Saturday? I won’t be able to sleep until I have your answer.

Love has given me a miss for so long, and now this miracle has happened. Sex is a part of it, of course, but I have a Romaunt of the Rose feeling about it too. On Saturday we could have lunch at Fortt’s, then go back to Mrs. H’s. Never mind if you can’t make it then. I am free on Sunday too or Sunday week. Signal me tomorrow as to whether and when you can come.

Anthony Powell has written to me, and mentions you admiringly. Some of his comments about the Army are v funny. He’s somebody I’d like to know better when the war is over. I find his letters funnier than his books. Tinkerty-tonk, my darling. I pray I’ll hear from you tomorrow. If I don’t I’ll visit your office in a fake beard.

All love, JB

	Select Click for Answer
The first letter of each sentence, beginning with the second, spells out “A.N. Wilson is a shit.”

“Something Like a Warning”

Being on a main road in Ashwell, Hertfordshire, this gate, with its peculiar inscriptions, naturally causes much comment. It stands on a field belonging to Mr. C.H.P. Walkden, whose orchard has suffered severe depredations, and shows his philosophical endeavour to cope with the evildoers.

— Strand, July 1908

November 7, 2010 | Oddities

A Marketing Problem

In 1938, poet Chard Powers Smith took a half-finished novel to Scribner’s. They liked the text but objected to the title, which they thought would discourage customers. Smith agreed to change it, and the next year The Artillery of Time was published.

Smith’s original title was The Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck’s novel appeared a few weeks later.

November 7, 2010November 6, 2010 | Literature

The Rescue

“Boys, I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old man leaned out of a four-story building, calling for help. Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren’t long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind–nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it, and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down.”

— Mark Twain, in Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boy’s Life of Mark Twain, 1916

November 6, 2010 | Humor · Literature

First Aid

In 1950, Simon & Schuster published a new children’s book, Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. Publisher Richard Simon decided to include a few bandages with each copy as a publicity gimmick. He wired a friend at Johnson & Johnson:

PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY.

The friend wired back:

BAND-AIDS ON THE WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?

November 6, 2010November 5, 2010 | Humor · Literature

Piecemeal

The following successful though illegal operation is reported by Professor A. Gloden in Sphinx, Volume VI, Number 7. In multiplying 6 2/3 by 4 4/5 a student first found the product of the integers, 6 × 4 = 24. He then reduced the fractions to the common denominator … and divided the product of the numerators 10 × 12 by the common denominator 15. The result 24 + 8 = 32 is correct.

In the same way he obtained the correct value of the product 9 3/5 × 2 2/4.

— “Curiosa,” Scripta Mathematica, October 1936

November 5, 2010 | Science & Math