Not Inhaling at Georgetown, Etc.

I concur - I went to a small private college with a lot of aspiring politicians, and often saw the same thing going on - paying 'lip service' to the dope being passed around.

Were they really pretending to inhale? Or did they just not realize they were supposed to inhale?

While it's wonderful that Joel treasures his readers and shares the insightful and witty comments on the main blog, I'm thinking that he's engineered a pretty nifty little gig. All he need do is stir the pot, add a little fairy (or Rove) dust, and voila: the self-perpetuating column where he need not compose.

wait...i'm commenting on something JW said? couldn't i just do that in the comments normally? once the RoveStorm passes, I think joel's new method may break down.

and when do we get to talk about Tom Delay? You promised, Joel!

I went to a very large public university in Austin, Texas. My memories of college in the late 60's are not quite the same. We all would pretend to draw the smoke deep into our lungs, pretend to hold it in as long as possible, then pretend to let it slowly out of our mouths, recircing into our noses again. Then we would all pretend to be montrously hungry and eat vast quantities of diner food while pretending to giggle at nothing. Then we would go to Threadgill's or Armadillo World Headquarters for music and cultcha. Aspiring politicians avoided such campuses like Rush Limbaugh at a convention of Captain Ahab impersonators.

Joel's method worked before he began his comments on the Rove situation (though it did bring in several new members of the many dimensioned SAO15), so I tend to disagree with you edward. I don't think the method will break down.

But if Joel is starting to post OUR comments as his blog, I think we might start competing against each other. We'll try to come up with wittier and more intelligent things to say than the last post, and eventually we'll be writing posts using only sentences consisting of words of 10 letters or more and it will be ridiculous. Maybe some of us may even invent our own new "intelligent" words. And we'll all adopt British accents.

Actually, I was really glad that the letter about Toles appeared in the Post. I had NO IDEA what the hell Toles was talking about with "bunny around the tree". ????!!? I thought he had finally cracked under the deadline pressure. You know, he doesn't have a comments section that he can rip off for his daily cartoon.

Hmmm... I can't recall how I learned to tie my shoes, but I don't think bunnies were involved.

Oops. I forgot to mention that I went to college with Farrah Fawcett. Yep, just me and Farrah and 42,000 other schmoes...

Just because *some* aspiring politicians at Georgetown didn't inhale, doesn't mean that Clinton also did not. Just because lots of theater technicians smoke cigarettes, does not mean that I do too. Just because some primates throw feces, doesn't mean that we all do.

It is possible that joel has just recognized our supreme intelligence and witty criticisms of pop culture should be raised above "comments" status and go right to the main subject line. That, or he's gotten very, very lazy......

It will be a RARE event when any comment gets elevated from the Kaboodle (aka the Comment Mire) to the Kit (the main blog item), but I liked the no-inhaling thing a lot, not that I've ever had any experience with such an activity. And the JW thing was just to make it seem more like a "package" of comments. But I expect every comment, even those mired in the Kaboodle, to be brilliantly composed. Not that I read them, you understand.

It's sad that I have time to find this stuff.

Bunny and tree on a really sad website: http://www.chasa.org/tyingshoes.htm

every morning i still have to try to "remember" how to tie my shoes. if bunnies are involved, they must be hiding under my bed.

Ouch! I was stoked with the shout-out, and then Joel calls my post the "JW thing" and says it was just filler! Bah.

This is why it's good to be a woman. You don't need to tie high heels. You have to endure walking in pain, but you don't have to tie them.

yeah, but you know those sheels with the little side buckles that go around your ankle? It's like you've gotta be a contortionist to get those on...

You may have to walk in pain, but at least you look good. It's all about priorities.

Yeah, but what about the high heels that also have the laces that wrap up around the ankle? Is that the worst of both worlds?

i dunno.... i like my flip-flops, personally. Casual-dress offices rule.

>>Just because *some* aspiring politicians at Georgetown didn't inhale, doesn't mean that Clinton also did not.

But the point is - just because Clinton said that he didn't inhale doesn't mean that he did and that therefore he must have been lying about it - which many people (pretty much unchallenged in the media) seem to believe ipso facto.

I discovered closed-toe leather sandals this year. In a Rovesque "I did not name her" way they meet the requirements of a business casual workplace...Woohoo! My feet have never been happier.

I tie my shoes in a square knot, although most folks use a granny. Just because the free ends are doubled back into the knot for easy untying doesn't change the nature or name of the knot itself. Take a close look at what you are doing next time, and change over to a square knot if you are tired of retying your shoes during the day.

Flip-flops and shorts--in the office! It's wonderful. One day we decided that if "they" instituted a Casual Friday here, we'd all have to just pretty much wear our pajamas to work.

Hmm...you have a point there. I may actually be wrong. It IS a square knot with the ends passed back through. But are the ends passing back through the knot enough to make it an entirely different knot?

I use a squareknot to tie my shoes, if the laces habitually come undown of their own accord. My mocassins at home have this problem. Do a square knot, then do the loop thing. And, no, I was not a boy scout...

I like to take the laces out of my shoes and tie them into monkeyfists, then throw them at cats. Unfortunately, without the lead weight in the center, it loses some of the effect.

I was tought using bunny analogies for both bowline & shoe tying. Yes virginia, there are two bunnies. I never realized it was a "double slipped" square (apparently aka reef) knot until reading the letter to the editor. Some quick shoe tying confirmed it is actually a square knot obfuscated by the loops.

It is indeed a bowed square knot if you do it right. If you do a bowed granny knot instead (it's more natural to the person tying because of the fact that a granny knot crosses the same way both times through, where as a square knot leads with one side, then the other) (1) your shoes are more likely to come untied and (2) your laces will not lie neatly orthogonal to your shoe (for my fellow OCDers out there... though you guys already knew all that).

A transition from shoe tying to RoveStorm: A colleague once taught me how to tie my shoes like they do in the CIA. For CIA-tied shoes, according to my colleague, the bunny makes two trips around the tree. Shoes tied this way do not come undone.

Here's an interesting cultural test -
Were you taught to tie your shoes by your father or your mother (if you were only taught to velcro your shoes, you're too young to be part of this test).
My answer: Dad

I distinctly remember back in the mid-1990s seeing some commentator on (I think) The McLaughlin Group specifically discuss the Clinton inhaling story. This guy went to school with Clinton and he said that he was there when Clinton didn't inhale. Someone passed Clinton a joint. He said that Clinton had allergies or asthma or something, and as soon as he started to take a puff he broke into a coughing fit. He never inhaled because he couldn't.

He wasn't offering it as a defense. In fact, he made some offhand comment about Clinton being typically weasely about his answer. But he said that despite all that, Clinton's claim was true--he didn't inhale.

It seemed believable.

For what it's worth, Martin Walker, in his book The President We Deserve, says Clinton didn't inhale because he was no good at smoking. But Walker claims Clinton did ingest a goodly number of laced browies and cookies back in the day.

I was actually taught how to tie my shoes by my brother. My parents tried but I just couldn't get it. My brother helped me and the light bulb came on.

I always tie my boots with a square knot. It is neater and more secure and doesnt get tangled up when untying