Archive for the ‘pets’ tag
The American Dog #
I think there’s something to Michael Schaffer’s thesis that the burgeoning pet industry owes something to American alienation, but really it’s this statistic — whose statistical rigor I doubt — that got my attention:
A 2001 survey for the American Animal Hospital Association revealed that 83 percent of pet owners call themselves their animal’s “mommy” or “daddy.”
Holiday Fin #
Whenever I read the Lives story from the New York Times Magazine, I enjoy it.
When I found him under the passenger seat, my heart sank. Our happy little fish was dead. I gently placed his corpse into his waterless bowl and sat down on the curb with my wife.
That’s how the E.M.S. medics discovered us when they arrived 10 minutes later — a woman with a bloody lip and a man holding a fish, trying not to cry.
America’s Pets #
Your disturbing statistic of the day comes care of Passport, who points out that the amount Americans spend on health care for their pets is roughly the same as the GDPs of Botswana or Bahrain.
Why Security Questions Suck #
Josh Levin answers a question that I know has crossed my mind at least a few time: why are my bank’s security questions so bad? But his explanation of the problem gets it exactly.
My favorite type of ice cream is probably cookie dough, but because of the vexing onset of lactose intolerance, I don’t have any preferred flavors these days. I don’t generally carry my library card and have no favorite entertainer, unless baseball players count. (Howard Johnson!) I’m not married, and I didn’t especially care for any of my elementary school teachers. Favorite cartoon character? It’s a different Simpson every day of the week.
But here’s the short answer:
The problem isn’t a failure of imagination on the part of the question-conjurers. It’s the impossibility of coming up with a question that’s easy to answer but hard to guess.