In Impromptus today, I touch on a range of subjects, as usual. I start with Juanita Castro, a sister of Fidel, who was a dissident and defector. She has died at 90. Toward the end, I get to Colette Maze, a French pianist, who has died at 109. (She played right up until the end, too.) In between, I have Trump, sports, etc. See what you think.
Let’s have a little mail. In an Impromptus last week, I had the following item:
Twenty-five years ago, I was making a point about Ross Perot. I prefaced it with, “Now, far be it from me to knock a man who has made three billion dollars, but . . .” Bill Buckley corrected me with: “There is zero correlation between business success and political judgment.”
Vivek Ramaswamy makes me think of this. So does Elon Musk. And others.
A reader from Michigan writes, “Don’t forget Henry Ford, Jay.” Ah, right. Ford is both a glory and a shame of our home state. Bad politics is one thing; Nazi politics is another.
In the column I have linked to, I had another item about Norman Lear, who has died at 101. I told a story about Bill Buckley and All in the Family — one of Lear’s shows. A reader writes,
In the media coverage of Mr. Lear, I have not noticed any mention of his best show, Fernwood 2 Night. It is the best satire of TV talk shows ever. It’s a shame it has never been released on the VHS/DVD market. (I know some people would be offended.)
Somewhere along the way, I had a note on language — specifically “slew,” as in “a slew of items,” “a slew of people.” Should it be plural? A lot of words that are singular are used plurally — including “lot.” “A lot of us are going to that dinner.” “A bunch of people are staying away from it.” It would be weird to say “A lot of us is going” or “A bunch of people is staying.”
How about “majority”? A majority of people are against? Is against? (Both, I think.)
But back to “slew”: Most of the readers I have heard from say, “Go ahead and pluralize.”
We can leave “any” and “none” — such touchy issues — to another time.
At the end of that Impromptus last Friday, I had some photos from Pittsburgh, including a shot of its official Christmas tree, a thing of beauty, as you would expect. A reader from Piedmont, S.D., sends a photo, saying,
This is the Rapid City Christmas Tree before the lighting ceremony. (My cousins from Omaha are in the foreground.) The tree has a name: “Eileen.” Or is it “I Lean”?
Behold:
