Word: contests
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...have our peculiar talents: an uncanny sense of direction, a knack for knowing when to dump a stock, an ability to bake the perfect cake. Larry Wood's forte is winning the New Yorker's Caption Contest, in which readers are invited to submit the perfect quip to accompany the magazine's back-page cartoon. At least 5,000 would-be wordsmiths play the contest each week; of those, three entries are selected by the magazine as finalists, and the winner is chosen in an online vote. On June 1, Wood, a 46-year-old attorney from Chicago, found...
Sometimes something comes pretty quickly. In the first contest I won, [the image] showed a panhandling dolphin, a guy reaching into his back pocket to give him some money, and a woman yelling something at him. I just tried to think about stereotypical things people think about dolphins and panhandlers. Dolphins are intelligent. And one of the most common and nastiest things people say about panhandlers is that they should get a job. And I thought of the caption (registration required). That didn't go over well with my colleagues, because I'm a poverty lawyer...
...projection you're talking about calls to mind a great Slate article in which a caption-contest winner explained that the trick to winning was using common cliches about the cartoon subject. A colleague emailed me that article, by Patrick House. That killed me - he had a great caption, but I really loved that cartoon and my caption was almost identical to his, and mine was shorter...
...comes President Obama—a lawyer, a teacher, a man of the constitution —to contest for the ideal. He is challenged, like Lincoln, to make the law of our constitution our guide. His challenge will be played out at home and abroad in the courts of our consciences and of public opinion. Do we believe in Law, or in its subversion? Can we hold on to the wisdom of Socrates and the hopes and ideals of our founders, or will we bow to the cynicism and power of the autocrat? Can we express our ideals...
...Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously declared Al Franken the winner of the longest contest for U.S. Senate in the state's history on June 30. After nearly eight months, millions of dollars in legal fees, two appeals and a recount, GOP incumbent Norm Coleman conceded gracefully, telling reporters in front of his St. Paul home, "I have never believed that my service is irreplaceable. We have reached the point where further litigation damages the unity of our state, which is also fundamental. In these tough times, we all need to focus on the future. And the future today is: we have...