Culture...

Apparently, in the vicinity of some big name university in Massachusetts, there is a bridge with a sign on it stating that it is  364-odd "Smoots".  Apparently, a freshman was induced by some upper-classmen to lay down repeatedly until they had completed the measuring.  Or something like that--the version I heard of the story may have been exaggerated...

This seems like the sort of prank that would be played in an Anglophone nation; for some reason, I have a hard time imaging a bridge in Germany being measured as being Drei hundert sechzig Schmitts, or one in Korea as being sam paek yook ship Jungs; in either case, actually painting the measurement on the bridge, and having it still be there over half a century later...?

Similarly, His Imperial Majesty Barack Hussein Obama recently congratulated President and Mrs. Mme Sarkozy of France on the birth of their daughter; apparently, HIMBO made the common--in the USA!--joke that, "fortunately, I understand that the child inherited her looks from her mother, not he father."  While, in America, the father would be making that joke, this seems to have been yet another gaffe to call into question the wisdom of the so-called "Smart Diplomacy" we have been saddled with since January of 2009.

Anyway, the latest item in the "Only In America" file involves one of those people who are mostly famous for being famous, and who recently got a divorce, or an annulment, or something, after only 72 days of marriage.  The only reason I bring it up is to observe that Mrs. Drang and I have been married for just under 100 Kardashians.

Which has nothing to do with Star Trek: Deep Space 9, BTW.