Daily Archives: November 9, 2005

Ralph Reed At UM Tomorrow (Updated)

Posted on November 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I probably won’t be able to make this one, and if I did I’m not sure I could keep down my lunch while listening to a lecture on “Values and Politics” from Ralph Reed — the guy who orchestrated the campaign painting Max Cleland — of all people! — as anti-American…but if I did, what should I ask him?

Ralph Reed, who chaired the Georgia Republican Party in 2002, has worked on seven presidential campaigns, and served as chairman of the Southeast Region for Bush-Cheney ’04, will lecture on “Values and Politics in America” as part of the University’s President’s Lecture Series on Thursday, November 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the School of Business Administration’s Storer Auditorium.Thursday, November 10 6:30 p.m. Storer Auditorium. Open to the UM Community.

Actually, if I had the chance, the event I’d like to crash is this one:

Media Advisory for Thursday, November 10, 2005

The University of Miami invites members of the media to a lecture and interview opportunity with Ralph reed at 5:30 P.M.

Update: Oooh, Reed is apparently deeply involved in the Abramoff Indian Gambling Scandal. What a good choice of a person to have to lecture students on “Values and Politics”.

2nd Update: You don’t suppose we are paying him, do you?

Posted in U.Miami | 3 Comments

‘Snowclone’ Has Melted?

Posted on November 9, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

A little while ago I noticed a Wikipedia entry for a cute neologism, “Snowclone”, which was defined as something like, “the some-assembly-required adaptable cliché frames for lazy journalists” or “cliches that exist as templates, i.e. 'an X shade of Y' or 'X is the new Y'”

The primal snowclone appears to be “If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.”

Wikipedia used to have a cute entry for these, but to my shock it is no more. Go to the entry for Snowclone, and not only has the entry been deleted, but it has been replaced with a note saying “This page has been deleted, and should not be re-created without a good reason.”

Well, ok, I can always go back to the page history and at least copy the cute definition and examples, right? Wrong. Where I would expect to find the old versions, I find instead a stern note: “This article has been deleted. The reason for deletion is shown in the summary below, along with details of the users who had edited this page before deletion. The actual text of these deleted revisions is only available to administrators.”

Apparently, while I wasn't looking “This article was successfully voted to death on VFD early this month.”

Snowclone melted. But I'm sure it will be back.

Meanwhile, get your snowclone links while they're…still hot.

Posted in Internet | 4 Comments