Thanks for reading my hodge-podge assemblage of blog posts this week. Come visit me over at
my web site if you like what you're reading. Or even if you don't.
To close out the week on this Black Friday, I thought it would be appropriate to offer you a round-up of links that center around the most important word in my life right now: inappropriate. I look forward to making my first-ever visit to Portland, Oregon, when I read at Powell's Hawthorne Blvd. location on January 7. I hear it's heaven on Earth.
First, in a five-paragraph post, Edward Skidelsky, writing in the Prospect, gives us essential reading if you're curious about how this word inappropriate has seeped into our language as a catch-all term for everything that is not-quite-right. Here's the first paragraph: "No words are more typical of our moral culture than inappropriate and unacceptable. They seem bland, gentle even, yet they carry the full force of official power. When you hear them, you feel that you are being tied up with little pieces of soft string."
÷ ÷ ÷
Guess what word former Miss California Carrie Prejean used when she didn't want to talk to Larry King about her sex tape? You guessed it: inappropriate.
÷ ÷ ÷
Filmmaker Errol Morris continues to burn up his Opinionator for the New York Times. This post discusses truth and perception in photography and "inappropriate alarm clocks." You'll have to read to understand.
÷ ÷ ÷
Teacher hands out beer holders (called "Stubbies" in Australia) to 12-year-old students.
÷ ÷ ÷
Adam Lambert, my favorite American Idol runner-up evah, is bumped from Good Morning America and The Early Show as a result of his risqué American Music Awards performance. Why? "The networks need to accept responsibility for preventing inappropriate acts to occur on their stations."
÷ ÷ ÷
Ten percent of iPhone apps are rejected for "inappropriate content."
÷ ÷ ÷
In Clayton County, Georgia, 1,500 students dressed inappropriately on November 20.