Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Beard of the Week XII
Yes, we are back from our trip to Rome. We returned late last Thursday night having lost none of the 22 people in our group. This was Isaac's first venture organizing a tour, and he had great fun as tour guide, mother hen, and font of all historic and cultural wisdom about Rome, ably aided […]
Last Stand
Two harrowing snippets from Seymour Hersch's "Last Stand: The military’s problem with the President’s Iran policy" (New Yorker, 10 July 2006): A retired four-star general, who ran a major command, said, “The [military-planning] system [that's looking for excuses to bomb Iran] is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don’t want to […]
Still Valid after all These Years
I'm afraid I can't really help myself. This remarkable little googlette came my way: Is the Uncertainty Principle still valid? Were this a joke, the obvious punch line would be: Not sure. I know, I know — perhaps later we'll have a learned essay on the Uncertainty Principle — I've got notes someplace. But, I'm […]
Terrorists' Aides
Every time a Republican attacks our freedoms a terrorist gets his wings. [RJ Eskow, "A Warning For America – When Republicans Hurt Our Freedoms, The Terrorists Win", The Huffington Post, 1 July 2006.]
Norwegian Fireball
You know, if it weren't for the random mailing lists that I subscribe to — I mean, do any of the "top blogs" cover this stuff? — I wouldn't even know about cool things like last week's fireball in Norway (thanks to NASA's Space Weather): NORWEGIAN FIREBALL: A spectacular fireball that flew over Norway last […]
Noah's Rainbow
During the most recent round of Republican gay-bashing — i.e., the national "debate" about the "gay marriage" amendment — I listened to the rehash of the usual vacuous and specious arguments about why gay people should not be allowed to participate in the institution of matrimony, and reflected on some responses. I suffer from l'éspirit […]
Beard of the Week XI
Before I forget to mention it, Isaac and I are taking a vacation in Rome starting next week, so I and Beard of the Week will be on a brief hiatus starting then, but we plan to return in a couple of weeks, perhaps with some new beards from Italy. The last time we visited […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Oppenness + Tolerance = Creativity
People who want to take a swing at San Francisco [using it as a right-wing code phrase for "gay"] should think twice. Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (where are the hippies?), but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software […]
Atheistic Lions
According to Reuters:* KIEV (Reuters) – A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the […]
Heterosexuality in the Free Market
I'm reminded of a 1961 British film called Victim. Or rather I'm reminded of a line Pauline Kael wrote when she reviewed it. The film was about a married barrister (Dirk Bogarde) who is blackmailed because he had a homosexual affair. It was an early step in popular culture's being sympathetic to gay people, though […]
The Un-Threat
AMERICA HAS much more to fear than gay marriage. So it was disappointing to hear President Bush's radio address on Saturday, and his speech yesterday, in which he defends marriage, scolds activist judges, and supports the Marriage Protection Amendment, which would change the Constitution by only allowing one man and one woman to wed. "Government, […]
Attn: Gay Flag-Burners
Other Republican operatives say the strategy [of re-introducing hot topics like "gay marriage" and "flag burning"] is a waste of time when most Republican voters are angry or divided over the Iraq war, high gas prices and immigration. "Those are the issues that are dominating people’s dinnertable talk," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s […]
Beard of the Week X
When I was in graduate school, our department (physics) had a secretary who was very sweet, very helpful, but rather naive in many ways. One day — and I don't remember how this came about, since encouraging females in this way was not exactly up my alley — she happened to feel my beard. I […]
Memorial-Day Margaritas
A weekend ago Isaac and I went to a large, backyard picnic, hosted by some friends, to celebrate Memorial Day in the traditional way. Among other amusements, we were entertained by a young magician who kept the adults and the annoying and precocious children amused. I ate hot dogs; they always taste better at Memorial-Day […]
Googlettes
Continuing my morbid fascination with the search strings that people use to arrive at this blog, I feel that a word is needed for these often spectacularly odd phrases. I'm toying with "googlettes", but I'm not committed. There are, of course, a couple more odd googlettes to mention today. Strikingly, both appeared on the same […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Such Language!
Massive Election Fraud
Well, the buzz today is all about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s piece in Rolling Stone ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"). Sometimes I feel like I'm just waiting for everyone to catch up to the obvious (see my "Massive Election Conspiracy Not Required"), but it is after all a rather delicate subject. Why didn't the Democrats […]
His Spaceship
I write to congratulate my friend and former colleague# James Howard, who just had a short story published in the University of Baltimore's annual literary magazine Welter. I could send him a private note, but he's one of my four regular readers and this way everyone else gets to hear about the story. The story […]
Gore: "Renegade Rightwing Extremists"
The following excerpts are from an interview* that Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian [UK] had with Al Gore, who had just given a speech at the Guardian's "Hay Festival". "I am Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States of America," he says, opening the routine. When that gets […]
Estate-Tax Repeal Would Line a Few "Lucky" Pockets
Here is another interesting bit of analysis, described in an announcement (given below in its entirety) from Representative Henry Waxman's office, that connects a few dots: New Report Reveals Estate Tax Repeal Would Give Over $200 Million Windfall to Oil Company Executives May 30, 2006 — Next week the Senate is scheduled to consider legislation […]
Social Neanderthalism
Herewith a lovely new phrase — so useful in these days of thoughtless social conservatism — brought to my attention by Pam.* The story itself was interesting enough, about how the conservative Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has told his party's MPs not to talk about those two gay Mounties who are planning to get […]