Elevate the Ether

In the last few months, Gail Collins of the New York Times has become one my most-favorite pundits, making clear, concise points with a keen sense of humor. This morning she looks at those insufferable computer upgrade notices that are seemingly always there, and always ready, willing and able to promise a more-wonderful life in the…

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Down the Baseline

Last summer, I had some sort of political epiphany as candidate Barack Obama near-nonchalantly shot/tossed a basketball in front of a crowd of US troops in Afghanistan — Too cool for school. One can watch the event here. From a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday: Among all Americans, 49 percent now express confidence that Obama…

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Clueless Shock

As the economy tanks, the more wealthy of us are also going down the drain, albeit in slower, easier fashion. From the New York Times yesterday: But economists say — and data is beginning to show — that a significant change may in fact be under way. The rich, as a group, are no longer…

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The Late, Great News Game

UPDATE BELOW “I’m glad you’re not overreacting. What do you wanna run?” “I don’t know. What do I wanna run? — They didn’t do it.” “They didn’t do it? You don’t have close to that. You have unattributed cops.” “She doesn’t have ‘Gotcha!’” “You don’t have “Gotcha!” for page one until you have a shot…

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Coke-Dust Dollars

A fiscal reflection of the age. From CNN: Research presented this weekend reinforced previous findings that 90 percent of paper money circulating in U.S. cities contains traces of cocaine. “When I was a young kid, my mom told me the dirtiest thing in the world is money,” said the researcher, Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry…

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Woodstock Delayed

Today forty years ago the Woodstock Music Festival started and although it was a supposedly major US cultural event, a big chuck of Americans were unaware of a revolution that started and ended on a farm in upstate New York — including yours truly. (Illustration found here). In the summer of 1969 I was 20-years-old…

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No Longer ‘Just Around the Corner’

One of the most-alarming aspects of climate/weather change/global warming is the science — the most current report is always worse than the previous one and sometimes the figures are amazing. Just a couple of examples can be found here and here. If this trend continues, and most-likely it will, the very-near-future will assure there will cease…

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