Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Park on Prayer
PRAYER: SENATE’S MORNING PRAYER WAS INTERRUPTED YESTERDAY. Hindu priest Rajan Zed, the first Hindu asked to lead a Senate prayer, was just getting started yesterday when protestors from a fundamentalist Christian anti-abortion group began shouting “this is an abomination” from the Senate visitor’s gallery. Abomination? The prayer was as inconsequential as any other opening prayer. […]
Brief Hiatus 2
Once again, for the second time this year, we are taking a tour group to Italy. This time we will be a team of 10 visiting the Tuscany region. Our hotel is in Pisa, and we plan to visit Florence, Lucca, Siena, San Gimignano, and the Chianti region. Leaving late this evening, we plan to […]
Bob Park Speaks
Herewith two items from Bob Park's What's New, issue for Friday, 6 July 2007: 2. SCIENCE ADVICE NOW: GEORGE W. BUSH IS LOOKING FOR ANSWERS. A front-page story by Peter Brown in the Washington Post on Monday says the meetings are never listed on the president’s public schedule, and remain unknown to many on his […]
In: All, Current Events, Laughing Matters
Via Crucis
When we were in Rome in April (of this year, 2007), it was for the third time in six years — twice in the last two, in fact. It seemed more familiar this time, and I felt like we had a more relaxed time choosing what old familiars to see for the second or third […]
On Reading Breaking the Spell
I am a fan of philosopher (and noted atheist) Daniel Dennett. I like reading his books, I like his style, I like his writing. Last year I read a couple more of his books. So far nothing has excited me more than Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which I thought absolutely brilliant, but they're still pretty good. […]
An Industry is Born
Here's a provocative fact: The [Los Angeles] Times reports that there are 160,000 troops in Iraq and 180,000 US contractor employees. followed by a trenchant observation (in the form of a rhetorical question): In the longer term, where does this new "war service industry" go when we get out of Iraq? For more, see Dina […]
Pnk-Pistol-Totin' Dykes
Here's one for the Will Rogers scrapbook — file under "you can't make this stuff up". Do you lie awake at nights worried about violent, roving gangs of pink-pistol-totin' lesbians out to recruit your ten-year old daughters? Neither do I. However, some people with over-heated imaginations apparently do. I suspect that merely giving you the […]
In: All, Laughing Matters, Will Rogers Moments
Some Elizabethan Food
I like to read cookbooks, and sometimes I take a particular delight in reading cookbooks that reveal some of the history of cooking. Recently I enjoyed Francine Segan's Shakespeare's Kitchen : Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook (New York : Random House, 2003). She takes a nice tour of choice recipes from Elizabethan sources and […]
Witches & Liberty
I've been enjoying reading Napoleon's Buttons (citation below), sort of the history of the world through the eyes of a couple of organic chemists. More later when I get to the book note. Anyway, what follows is a longish quotation that I found lots of resonance with for some reason — perhaps because it's US […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections
Eight Facts & Habits
My friend "Three-Thumbs" Tim had the nerve to tag me with one of these pointless internet "meme" things. I'm an old-enough fart that they seem rather like glorified chain letters to me. Yes, yes, I know all about memes and such — I suspect I've read more books by Dawkins and his ilk than most […]
Running Man
Sometime a few weeks ago I was reading some novel — I'm afraid I don't really remember what it was, but it almost certainly was a modern crime/mystery novel — when one of the characters made a passing reference to Paul McCartney & Wings, and their long-ago hit song "Band on the Run". "Band on […]
Chicken Cacciatore
Let's continue on these food thoughts for just a bit longer. A couple of weeks ago we had the annual meeting of the board of directors of Ars Hermeneutica, and I made dinner for everyone. We had a casual sort of meal: slow-cooker chicken cacciatore, served with angel-hair pasta, a big Italian style green salad*, […]
Against Garlic's Savour
My friend Richard writes with this historical tidbit: "Sir John Harrington, the man credited with inventing the WC, was Queen Elizabeth's cousin. He also left behind this kitchen poem." If leeks you leake, but do their smell disleeke, eat onions And you shall not smell the leek. If you of onions would the scent expel, […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Laughing Matters
Brussels Sprouts Wisdom
For years I have cut a cross in the bottoms of brussels sprouts, but this time I bought them ready to cook, I forgot about it, and it didn't make any difference. [Ava Astaire McKenzie, At Home in Ireland : Cooking and Entertaining with Ava Astaire McKenzie (Niwot, Colorado : Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1998), p. […]
In: All, Briefly Noted, Food Stuff
Sloppy Joes Again
The Sloppy Joes saga continues; now it threatens to get thoroughly out of hand and rather sloppy, if you will. Recently, in my search for a simple, basic recipe for Sloppy Joes that recreated a taste I remember from childhood, I presented "Jeff's Sloppy Joes". Whatever it was that I was remembering, I knew that […]
Beard of the Week XXIX: A Lovely Face
This week's honorary beard — his mustache, actually — belongs to Bruce Rogers. Rogers' name will be unfamiliar to most except for certain connoisseurs, in this case aficionados of typefaces, by whom his name is venerated. Rogers was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1870 and died in 1957. To say that he is a renowned […]
Novel Characters
Last night Isaac and I watched "Farenheit 451", the film byFrançois Truffaut based on the novel by Ray Bradbury. It's a good film even if its attempt to look modern and futuristic looks dated. There has been a small kerfuffle lately with Bradbury saying (again) that the story is not about censorship but about the […]
Pascoe Snorts
I was quite pleased to discover on Monday night (typically "library night" around our house — more on that someday) that the Bowie Library had a copy on its shelves of the latest book by Reginald Hill, because I'm very fond of Reginald Hill's writing, particularly his decades-long series of Dalziel & Pascoe detective novels, […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Writing
Today's Best Googlettes
Today, within the space of an hour, two different people arrived at my blog with these googlettes: grinch eyebrow song interactive dildo game Can there be any greater recommendation than that? NB: These are emphatically not the most bizarre googlettes I've seen recently. However, some of the most diverting are definitely not fit for general […]
Heat to Sound to Electricity
From a recent Physics News Update comes this half-science, half-technology report about a device that uses heat to make electricity, with sound as an intermediary. The story is interesting enough by itself, but it is also a useful illustration that sometimes there are new ideas in science and technology that are not as inscrutable as […]
In: All, Current Events, It's Only Rocket Science