12 Years Ago Tomorrow: Smiling is over-rated in America

By Moristotle

[Originally published on January 30, 2009.]

I told my friend Ken, who took this photograph a couple of days ago and labeled it “Visionary,”¹ that I tended not to feel comfortable with photographs of myself in which I was not smiling. He commented that smiling is much over-rated in America. If you look at photographs from just a few generations ago, you’ll see no one smiling.

Tuesday Voice: The gun debate

Not that there’s a real conversation

By Tom Lowe

I’ve pretty much stayed out of the debate on guns that has taken place over the last year or so, suspecting that little impact on people’s reasoning was likely. Basically, I disagreed with the reasoning of all the positions articulated, that their frames of reference assumed a rationality I doubted existed; but I wasn’t clear why. The language of the Second Amendment seems clear [A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed], yet somehow the current dispute ignores the first half.

Tuesday Voice: Ireland, Part 2

More Blarney

By James T. Carney

[Sequel to "In Erin (Against Ireland)"]

The guidebook recited the following famous rhyme about Blarney, which is near Cork and on the River Lee:

    On Galway sands, they kiss the hands,
They kiss the lips at Carney,
But on the Lee, they drink strong tea
    And kiss the stone at Blarney.

Tuesday Voice: Ireland, Part 1

In Erin (Against Ireland)

By James T. Carney

“Veni, Vidi, Visa” (or to paraphrase one C. Iulus Caesar of Brutus fame),| “I came, I saw, I used my Visa card.”
    There’s an old Irish song that tells it all. The first verse goes:

I met with Napper Tandy and he took me by the hand,
And he said, “How’s poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?”
She’s the most expensive country that ever yet was seen
For they’re hanging men an’ women for the lacking of the green.

Smiling is over-rated in America

I told my friend Ken, who took this photograph a couple of days ago and labeled it "Visionary,"¹ that I tended not to feel comfortable with photographs of myself in which I was not smiling. He commented that smiling is much over-rated in America. If you look at photographs from just a few generations ago, you'll see no one smiling. I wonder whether anyone has studied this. I think that a history of the smile in America could be fascinating. How did the smile come to be over-rated? When was the tipping point? Et cetera.