To completely fubar something requires mid to upper management types and PowerPoint. I’ve sat through more than my share of mind-numbing bullet-point recitations – I tend to agree with Edward Tufte that PowerPoint has been, taken as a whole, a net loss to the sum of human knowledge. Crooked Timber’s John Holbo (he of the pony) has a great post on PowerPoint’s use and misuse in the Pentagon. It’s really quite chilling – slides as a substitute for orders. More info here.
Batrachomyomachia. It literally means ‘the battle of frogs and mice’ and is the title of a comic epic describing a one day war between, appropriately enough, frogs (led by Puff Jaw) and mice (Bread Nibbler, Slice Stealer, et al.) with a bit appearances by Zeus. Batrachomyomachia is now used – when it’s used at all – to describe a stupid dust up – all the civilization-threatening conflicts that when viewed with a little perspective (like two inches away) reveal themselves to be nothing more than a piss-hole in a snowbank.
The German language version – Froschmausekrieg – was used “by Helen Dukas (Einstein’s secretary and literary executor) to describe the long and bitter dispute between the School of Math and the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study.”*
Either version is good to keep in mind when you are considering going to the mattresses over the thermostat setting in the office…