It’s an interesting characteristic of Western culture (and maybe of cultures in general) that, over time, we tend to forget exactly why we do the things we do. Of course this is to be expected, as behaviors and preferences become institutionalized over time, making it less important to remember who was the first person to do or say something, and under what authority this was done.
“Morphing Double N______.” That was the link I clicked on, the link at which I knew that researching this article, on lolcats of all things (a joke so quirky-yet-plain that it netted coverage in Time), was going to lead me all the way down, through every level of adolescent offensiveness into the final stage.
The utilitarian function of the museum as mere container has long been eclipsed by its function as signifying apparatus. On the one hand, the design of the interior is responsible for the terms of encounter with individual works of art. On the other hand, the shape of the exterior mediates and proclaims a role for art within the surrounding architectural landscape, cultural mise-en-scène, and even historical moment.
“We definitely weren’t the favorites going into this,” senior and captain Casey Riley said. “But we pulled it out.” Riley wasn’t exaggerating. The women’s squash team, by many counts, was not the favorite to win this year’s Howe Cup.
Few people question the work that goes into their daily cup of coffee. Few are even aware that coffee is the second most traded international commodity after oil, with 12 billion pounds consumed annually.
I first knew David Hale as a statistic. To the similarly uninitiated, he is the same magnificent number, one that transcends the SAT scores and GPAs and BACs for which lesser Princetonians acquire numerical infamy. A sophomore in Mathey College, David carries an unpretentious and wholly likable air that belies his reputation.
The news that the British media—perhaps the world’s most ferociously unscrupulous—kept Prince Harry’s presence in Afghanistan a secret for ten weeks shocked the world. But as soon as the story broke, he was pulled off the front lines and sent home.
The increasing frequency and surprising breadth of product recalls in recent memory—spanning decapitating child seats, exploding laptop batteries, self-strangling cribs, fecal spinach, undeclared peanut butter cup candies in “Homestyle” ice cream, lead-laden Chinese Barbies, and “My First Kenmore” Play Stoves with “tip-over hazard”—makes it easy to forget or overlook the actual societal machinery that whirs into action whenever and only if a mass-consumed product is recalled.