Via The Lede, Iran’s state-​sponsored Press TV seeks to prove that the iconic death of pro­tester Neda Agha-​Soltan hap­pened just like the plot of one of the worst movies of the decade:

The con­spir­acy theory pre­sented in the doc­u­men­tary sug­gests that Ms. Agha-​Soltan first sprayed fake blood on her own face, while pre­tend­ing to have been shot as part of a ruse intended to dis­credit Iran’s gov­ern­ment, and then was later killed by the two men who seemed to be trying to save her life, a doctor who has since fled Iran and her music teacher who remains there.

Next time, guys, maybe people will believe you if you choose a better plot. Chi­na­town? Get Carter? Twin Peaks, maybe?

I’m a bit late track­ing this one, but former David Foster Wal­lace stu­dent Amy McDaniel (and, inci­den­tally, a col­lege class­mate of my own) has pub­lished a gram­mar quiz at HTML­GIANT that the late master once pre­sented to stu­dents of his cre­ative writ­ing work­shop. The quiz is titled, omi­nously (or is that humorously?):

IF NO ONE HAS YET TAUGHT YOU HOW TO AVOID OR REPAIR CLAUSES LIKE THE FOL­LOW­ING, YOU SHOULD, IN MY OPIN­ION, THINK SERI­OUSLY ABOUT SUING SOME­BODY, PER­HAPS AS CO-​PLAINTIFF WITH WHOEVER’S PAID YOUR TUITION

A halfway imag­i­nary place? Cour­tesy of Strange Maps, behold the Leo Belgicus:

The Leo Bel­gi­cus sym­bol­ised a nation that never was – a Nether­lands that also was a Bel­gium, and cov­ered the ter­ri­tory of both now sep­a­rate coun­tries. The deep­en­ing of the intra-​Netherlands split made the Leo Bel­gi­cus redun­dant. The curios­ity lived on, though, as a Leo Hol­landi­cus, adapted to reflect only the the province of Hol­land, core of the inde­pen­dent Dutch republic.

From Sarah Palin’s tome on the fugi­tive lifestyle, a chap­ter epi­gram attrib­uted to John Wooden:

Our land is every­thing to us… I will tell you one of the things we remem­ber on our land. We remem­ber our grand­fa­thers paid for it–with their lives.

Con­fused why the leg­endary UCLA bas­ket­ball coach would be writ­ing about his ances­tors sac­ri­fic­ing their lives for land?

From the arti­cle “Back on the War Ponies,” by John Wooden Legs, which appeared in the anthol­ogy, We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of Amer­i­can His­tory, edited by Nathaniel May, Clint Willis, and James W. Loewen:

Our land is every­thing to us. It is the only place in the world where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne lan­guage to each other. It is the only place where Cheyennes remem­ber the same things together. I will tell you one of the things we remem­ber on our land. We remem­ber our grand­fa­thers paid for it–with their life. My people and the Sioux defeated Gen­eral Custer at the Little Big Horn.

And that’s why you should always read to the end of the person’s name.

(via Huff­in­g­ton Post)