Well, actually not me, it's my building. Well, not my building so much as the building by my subway stop. Anyway, The New York Times has a story about building residences above retail stores (which I think is a fabulous development, and should be encouraged). The accompanying picture at the right side is of the Container Store by my metro stop.

(Link via my mother.)

Eugene Volokh notes, and agrees with, Judge Kozinski's dissent from the Ninth Circuit's DNA-gathering decision. Kozinski makes a quite smart slippery-slope argument:

This isn’t an issue we can leave for another day. Later, when further expansions of CODIS are proposed, information from the database will have been credited with solving hundreds or thousands of crimes, and we will have become inured to the idea that the government is entitled to hold large databases of DNA fingerprints. This highlights an important aspect of Fourth Amendment opinions: Not only do they reflect today’s values by giving effect to people’s reasonable expectations of privacy, they also shape future values by changing our experience and altering what we come to expect from our government. A highly expansive opinion like the plurality’s, one that draws no hard lines and revels in the boon that new technology will provide to law enforcement, is an engraved invitation to future expansion. And when that inevitable expansion comes, we will look to the regime we approved today as the new baseline and say, this too must be OK because it’s just one small step beyond the last thing we approved. See Eugene Volokh, The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1026, 1077-1114 (2003). My colleagues in the plurality assure us that, when that day comes, they will stand vigilant and guard the line, but by then the line—never very clear to begin with—will have shifted. The fishbowl will look like home.

In addition to learning that I've just blogged about Paul Goyette's grandmother (see UPDATE immediately below), and Amber's earlier post about the incredibly small world that is the D.C.-Libertarian-mafia. I learned yesterday that my replacement here at TNR is to be Will Wilkinson's roommate. Oi.

Writing in Slate, Dan Wachtell argues that knowing English can be a disadvantage in Scrabble:

et's say I know that THOU is a four-letter word. If I don't automatically know whether THOUED or THOUING are words, I would probably be able to guess because I understand how nouns and verbs function as parts of speech. THOUING and THOUED seem like they would be nonsense. But in fact they are acceptable: THOU can be a verb, meaning "to address as 'thou.' " If I didn't speak English, knowing the words THOU, THOUED, and THOUING would be as simple as memorizing three "words"—one of four letters, one of six letters, one of seven

When I went to the Indianapolis Scrabble tournament last year, one of my toughest opponents was an elderly lady named Gonya, who intimidated me on the second turn with a clever play that involved "AA" "AE" and "AG" (I knew, from memorizing the two-letter word list the night before, that those were good). Her English was barely functional, so out-of-game dialog ground basically to a confused halt, and even score-keeping was a chore.

At one point, for whatever reason, I found it helpful to play "Ashen". Gonya "held" (meaning she paused the time to consider a challenge) and rolled the word around in her mouth, pronouncing it "AZ-hen", as if it were some strange variety of bird. (Clearly, she was thinking, "Hen" is a word. "Pea-hen" is a word. Is "As-hen" a word?) Confidentally, she challenged.

Of course, the tournament director confirmed that "Ashen" was indeed a legal play, so it remained on the board and Gonya lost her turn. I used the gained time to gobble up some nice spot on the board. When Gonya finally got her chance, she played a high-scoring play (a seven-letter word, if my memory serves), that placed an "S" on the end of "ASHEN" to make "ASHENS". This was clever-- she had been surprised to learn that an "AS-HEN" was an odd type of bird, but she was going to make lemons out of lemonade.

Here I benefitted from the fact that the Scrabble Tournament Director reveals only whether the word is legal-- not what it means. "ASHEN," is not a bizarre feathered friend, but the state of being covered in or colored like ashes. Thus, no "ASHENS". After a brief moment of hesitation (Was "ASHEN" secretly also a verb, I wondered?) I challenged, confident in my working knowledge of the English language. Sure enough, "ASHENS" is not a word.

Gonya lost her turn (again!), and since I now knew what letters she had, I could block off her potential bingos, and coast on my three-turns-worth of a lead to a tight margin of victory.

Indeed, Wachtell's example may be a near-perfect reminder of why a working knowledge of English is often an advantage. For ever "THOU" that a native English-er may not know can be turned to "THOUED" and "THOUING", there is also an "ASHEN".

UPDATE: In the the-blogosphere-is-eerily-small category, I've just learned that the aforementioned Gonya is Paul Goyette's grandmother. (Which I've confirmed by looking at a photo he sent me.) I'd debated whether to use Gonya's name in the above, but then I decided, what are the odds that anybody knows her by first name?

Anyway, after Paul's post I should make clear that while some of the above is editorializing, and the slight haze that a story takes on in an intervening year and a half, some of the facts I am positive of-- the "ASHEN" challenge, the "ASHENS" counter-challenge, and the "AZ-hen" pronunciation. The rest is interpretation. In fairness to Gonya, who could out-play me two games out of three, I am sure, I will add that she nailed me when I tried to get away with "ZINE" (and politely informed me later that I should have done "ZINEB"; Oops).

On his Sports Illustrated blog, Mark Bechtel complains:

Speaking of aesthetically unpleasing sport, is there a worse event to watch on TV than fencing? The combatants dress up in shiny silver suits that light up when they're struck, making the fencers look like Eugene Levy during the Nothing Ever Happens on Mars number in Waiting For Guffman. Now, you'd think if they can make a suit illuminate, they could rig it so only the first one hit lights up. But no. So what you have is about a second and a half of action, during which both fencers smack each other (think Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber) and both suits light up. Then each fencer pumps a fist as if to say, "I got him!" while looking at the judge, who then apparently decides the winner of the point by flipping a coin, because it seemed like half the calls in the sabre finals match I watched were wrong. What's the point of having the suit light up if it doesn't tell you who hit who first? And fellas, swashbuckle a little, will ya?

Paul Goyette asks: "Is addiction necessarily unvirtuous?"

Heidi Bond provides the perfect answer:

Fact is, though, that I think I am somewhat addicted to (books). I buy books, even when I don't have time to read them and can't afford to spend the money.