Items of Interest

• Take the word test at Etymologic.
• The recently released Mozart in the Jungle by Oboist/Journalist Blair Tindall gives salacious details about the classical music industry that the typical readers of this blog (all five of you) could probably use to meet their (your) prurience quotas for the month, even though if they (you) (we) were to read about the exact same phenomena involving Jessica Simpson's backup dancers in People Magazine, they (you) (we) would consider it pedestrian and gauche and only suitable for the GFIMFD crowd. Whatever. I'm getting a copy from the library tomorrow. I'm sure bad-girl violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg checked for her name in the index as soon as it came out. Actually, I bet the whole Violinist Blogging Community will be abuzz with gossip for weeks.
• Michael Hawley writes in last month's Technology Review (I got a free subscription, all I had to do was buy a house) about the ebb of the Renaissance Man.
• Good Romero/Dead/Zombie resources. A bit old, but still quite worthwhile. Only six more days!

• Ex-President Rafsanjani might become the Grover Cleveland of Iran if he succeeds in the run-off election. Here's an interesting quote about the guy who came in third and doesn't get to be in the run-off:

  Karoubi came from nowhere in the polls to vault into the top three. He appears to have won support in rural areas which traditionally back clerics after he promised to give all Iranians free monthly handouts of 500,000 rials ($55).

  I can just see it now -- A bunch of Iranian rednecks gathered around him chanting "The Great Santa." Rafsanjani might not be given an honorary chairmanship of Amnesty International, but I bet he'd at least be stable. If that Ahmadinejad nutcase gets in there, watch out... and make sure you don't drive around Tehran with a "Don't blame me, I voted for Rafsanjani" sticker on the back of your car. Just wait -- this guy will do something stupid, Bush will want to invade Iran, decide that Iraq & Iran are practically the same country anyhow, merge them and rename them "Iranqistan." In any event, make sure to keep up with Hossein Derakhshan's ongoing commentary.

Supporters of Tehran Mayor Mahmood Ahmadinejad wait in line to cast their votes.