Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/27-3/28/2009

While the ideal scenario is to close out a playoff series on your home floor in front of your home fans, NBA star Chauncey Billups has a different outlook: "In a strange sort of way, it always feels better to close out a series on the road. That silence, like church."

Birthdays:
Wes Covington b. 1932
Cale Yarborough b. 1939
Annemarie Moser-Proll b. 1953
Chris McCarron b. 1955
Randall Cunningham b. 1963

Packers Fact:
Running back Noah Herron, who had career bests of 150 yards rushing and 211 yards receiving in 2006, missed the entire 2007 season after suffering a knee injury in the final preseason game.

3/28/1976:
Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, 14, wins all four of her events at the America's Cup competition at Madison Square Garden, scoring a perfect 10 in the vault today to go with the perfect 10 she received in the floor exercise during yesterday's prelims. She'll become the sensation of the Olympic Games in Montreal, posting seven 10s and winning gold for the balance beam, uneven bars and best all-around female gymnast.

Birthdays:
Vic Raschi b. 1918
Jerry Sloan b. 1942
Rick Barry b. 1944
Len Elmore b. 1952
Byron Scott b. 1961

Packers Fact:
Safety Aaron Rouse was the only defensive back that the Packers selected among their 11 drat choices in 2007. He was a third-round selection.

SAY WHAT?

Who would have thought that diagramming sentences could be the subject of a surprisingly fun book? Kitty Florey, that’s who. Author and copy editor Florey remembers fondly her introduction to serious grammar in sixth grade under the tutelage of one Sister Bernadette. It made language seem accessible, friendly, tidy, and satisfying. She displays the many splendors of this arcane enthusiasm, along the way discussing the disparate habits (and diagramming the sentences) of passionate grammarians Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Sister Bernadette, and others.

SISTER BERNADETTE’S BARKING DOG: THE QUIRKY HISTORY AND LOST ART OF DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES, by Kitty Burns Florey (Melville House, 2006)

OUCH, THAT’S FUNNY!

A good political cartoon is truly worth 1,000 words. Whereas wordsmiths slave over their keyboards, churning out arguments and counterarguments and digging up data, cartoons do not have to support a view, only strike a chord. The best are silent but deadly, conveying history and emotion in the blink of an eye. Hess and Northrop dote upon the cartoonist’s craft and the history of the genre, exemplified by 269 wonderful cartoons, in loving and lively detail.

DRAWN AND QUARTERED: THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICAL CARTOONS, by Steven Hess and Sandy Northrop (River City Publishing, 2007)

BATHROOM BRAINTEASERS

WHICH IS THE CORRECT SPELLING OF EACH COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORD?

1. a) Milenium b) Millenium c) Millennium

2. a) Dumbell b) Dumbbell c) Dumbel

3. a) Seperete b) Seperate c) Separate

4. a) Necesary b) Neccesary c) Necessary

5. a) Minniscule b) Miniscule c) Minuscule

6. a) Accommodate b) Acommodate c) Accomodate

7. a) Occurrence b) Ocurence c) Occurence

8. a) Embarrass b) Embarass c) Embaras

MAKES SENSE: THE VIETNAMESE CALL IT THE AMERICAN WAR.

THE WOMEN’S ROOM

A MOTHER OF INVENTION

Melitta Bentz, a housewife in Dresden, Germany, didn’t like the bitter, oily taste of coffee made by boiling loose grounds, the common brewing method in 1900. She wondered if there was a way to filter out the grit and oil. One day she took the blotter paper from her son’s school notebook, cut out a circle, and placed it in the bottom of a perforated brass pot. Then she measured in the coffee and poured hot water over it. Result: perfect, grit-free coffee. Bentz’s simple drip method was so successful that she applied for a patent in 1908, and the M. Bentz coffee company (now Melitta) was born.

ONE ISN’T ENOUGH? TWO RIVERS IN FLORIDA ARE NAMED WITHLACOOCHEE.

On Err. . . Keep Trying!

Radio host Tim Kelly: What birthday does a bicentennial celebrate?

Contestant: Err...

Kelly: I'll give you a hint. Centennial is one and bi means two.

Contestant: 102?

during a quiz segment on the Tim Kelly Show, Today FM, Dublin, Ireland

On Just the Snack I Wanted:

Cui Mei Si Burned Meat Biscuits

Chinese snack

HONG KONG

CHINA

Forests of bright signs and stalls of colorful produce and electronic goods compete for the attention of shoppers and passersby in congested main streets of Hong Kong’s many neighborhoods.

GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE

See the answer tomorrow.

Q: Bath, site of England’s only hot springs, has been a resort since the days when the ancient Romans ruled Britain. What English novelist described the life of leisure there in the city’s early 19th-century heyday?

a) Charlotte Brontë b) Jane Austen c) George Eliot d) Emily Brontë