Pun Salad

• Should you read only one high school commencement speech today, make it the one David McCullough Jr. gave to Wellesley (MA) High School seniors: "You're Not Special." It's funny and true.

• Embarrassing Republican Department, Florida Division:
  Famed attorney and legal commentator Alan Dershowitz has been one of the harshest critics of State Attorney Angela Corey's approach to prosecuting George Zimmerman. According to Dershowitz, Corey is none too pleased.

  Writing on Newsmax.com, the Harvard Law School professor says Corey called the school and went on "a 40-minute rant, during which she threatened to sue Harvard Law School, to try to get me disciplined by the Bar Association and to file charges against me for libel and slander."

  (Dershowitz's referenced Newsmax article is here. Corey is identified as a Republican here. Professor Jacobsen notes that she has a thin-skinned history of trying to intimidate critics.)

• Steven Hayward marks the thirtieth anniversary of President Reagan's speech at Westminster Hall, in which he predicted that Marxism-Leninism was inevitably destined for "the ash-heap of history." This (understandably) irked the Commies, and (predictably) horrified Western foreign policy "professionals". And yet, here we are. Video at the link.

• Language Log has another example of overzealous e-book search-and-replace, this one from the Kindle version of Ed McBain's Blood Relatives:
  CARELLA: What made you cnoindente your mind?

  PATRICIA: I cnoindented my mind, that's right.

(Aside: It's easiest to pick out things he got wrong: for example, 2013 London has lots of poorly-assimilated refugees from the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong. The death penalty has been banned, but criminals are routinely sentenced to "punitive coma", which is much cheaper than inprisonment.)

The book's premise is that enhanced genetic testing has allowed the authorities to detect a "VMN-negative" population, men with a psychological predisposition to violent sociopathy. Nobody wants to lock these people up, but they are entered into a database and provided with shrinks and drugs if they want.

Except one of them, with the codename "Wittgenstein" uses his diagnosis as a springboard to break into the program's database, find the identities of his fellow VMN-negatives, and undertake to murder them, one by one. He also begins to identify with his codename, constructing an elaborate philosophical justification for his actions.

Other than the futuristic premise, the story is a police procedural, following the investigation headed by female detective "Jake" Jakowicz. The narrative is interspersed with excerpts from Wittgenstein's "diary", where he discusses his motives and procedures.

Note to the squeamish: it's all a very sordid business, and Kerr doesn't shrink from explicit description.