Elevate the Ether
August 29, 2009In 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…
Category Archives: Musings
Clueless Shock
August 21, 2009As 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…
The Late, Great News Game
August 20, 2009UPDATE 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.…
Woodstock Delayed
August 15, 2009Today 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…
Rock/Country/Jazz — A Les Paul is still a Les Paul
August 13, 2009Although music didn’t die today, one of its real genius-producers did — Les Paul, dead at 94. Mr. Paul was a remarkable musician as well as a tireless tinkerer. He played guitar alongside leading prewar…
Conventional Crimes
August 12, 2009Today 60 years ago — Aug. 12, 1949 — was the fourth installment of what has been termed the “Geneva Conventions,” a series of documents meant not to stop war (what piece of paper could…
Learning Curve?
August 11, 2009After months of bad health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister to JFK and Ted Kennedy, died early this morning at age 88. Shriver was a major champion for the mentally handicapped, founding the Special Olympics in…
Bubba’s ‘lovely thing’
August 6, 2009Bill Clinton hasn’t ever meant much to me, other than being a greasy political animal with bad taste, thus seemingly just an inadvertent knuckle-head. (Illustration found here). This past week, however, the old bubba-boy seemed to…
Sixty-four Years and Counting
August 6, 2009Just a reminder, 64 years ago today Hiroshima was tagged. And Frida Berrigan at tomdispatch has a view this week on the Hiroshima legacy in today’s world: Keep in mind as well that the bombs which annihilated…
Wood-Be Inferno
July 30, 2009Via ClimateProgress this morning: We show that increases in temperature cause annual mean area burned in the western United States to increase by 54% by the 2050s relative to the present-day … with the forests of…