April 28, 2008
< previous day | archives | next day >
Google Maps error causes me a bit of consternation
I arrived in Liberal, Kansas after dark, Googled the location of Wal-Mart where I hoped to spend the night, drove there - and found no Wal-Mart. It took a few minutes, but I found it lurking a few blocks over. I only recently started using Google Maps to locate businesses and now wonder how often this kind of thing happens.
Night camp:
Wal-Mart parking lot, Liberal, Kansas
Politics and the English Language
....Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.
George Orwell 1945