...as in Cotton Mather, one of the WASP-iest antecedents in American genealogy. I suppose the modern-day version would be Nylon.

I'm kind of disturbed by all the letters chortling about the ignorance of black parents who burden their children with such hideous names. At least the names are evocative. Lower-middle-class white people give their children similarly awful, but dull, stodgy names apparently lifted from soap operas.

Or, in the case of girls, the names are excessively feminine creations and often misspelled, and I wince when I hear of a Jayleena or a KayCee (intercaps intentional). And who can ever forget JonBenet? What the hell kind of name was that?

Incidentally, speaking of Samantha, another such made-up name whose origins appear respectably shrouded in the mists of time is Vanessa. As in Vanessa Redgrave, or Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's half-sister). It was Jonathan Swift's nickname for his young mistress, Esther Vanhomrigh, whom he immortalized in the narrative poem "Cadenus and Vanessa."

Looks like the article the OP was quoting from was from the Times Online:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4618085.ece

So she linked to the wrong article. It happens. Hey, buddy, get out of your mother's basement and go play in the fresh air, and stop spamming this blog with whiny, pointless, bizarro screeds, kay?

Have a fantastic time. Spain is unforgettable. Hope you get to visit some of the white cities and drive up along the Western coast. But, yeah, watch out for the pickpockets and the two-man cons.

Frolick is right: the word "staycation" should elicit nothing but eye-rolling. It's not the idea itself of staying home--I relish the thought of sitting at home, spending the afternoon reading on my patio, a pitcher of sangria by my side, while bread dough rises on the countertop and boeuf bourgignon bubbles away in the oven. Or going for a very long bike ride out in the country, stopping in tiny towns spread across the prairie for a sandwich or a soda consumed in the quiet shade of the town square.

It's the cheesy, gimmicky mass media attempt to foist this on us as if it's something none of us had ever thought of and that it's our all-Amurrikan, teevee-watching, SUV-driving duty to undertake. I dread the day I walk into the office and, in the midst of desultory small talk about What We Did This Summer, hear, "Oh, you know how gas prices are! We thought we'd take a staycation this year." I plan to respond with (admittedly disingenuous) confusion. "Staycation? What's that?...Oh, you decided to stay home! I didn't know there was a word for that."

I'm alternately sobered and cheered by the idea of fewer Americans abroad. On the one hand, Americans should travel widely. On the other, when I was last in Paris, crossing the Seine to eat lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens, I looked up to see an oncoming group of American tourists speeding toward me on Segways, all wearing unintentionally identical shorts, t-shirts, running shoes, and baseball caps, apparently under the mistaken impression that they were in Disneyworld. That image has been stamped indelibly on my brain ever since, and I would be overjoyed to think that these are exactly the people to whom the whole mass-marketed "staycation" phenomenon is most likely to appeal.

I would have guess that TR knew how to dress a moose.

You know what they say: never put lipstick on a moose...it's a waste of time...

oh, never mind.

We might not know anything about field dressing a moose, but by now I think we all know how to pluck a Quayle.

(just couldn't resist)

We're doooooooomed! We're tooooast! Felled by a snarky overgrown cheerleader! Goodbye, cruel world! Let's just declare the election over right now!

Jeez, people, you thought it was going to be a cakewalk? What are you, neoconservatives?

Wait, don't answer that. I smell faux-Clintonites and concern trolls.

...the lipstick on the pitbull line is going to come back and bite her in the butt.

No pun intended, of course.