Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Iraq is Anti-Marriage
When it comes to hitting nails on the head, Shakespeare's Sister ("En Gard") has a very precise aim with her hammer: I have a question for conservatives who support both the Iraq War and banning gay marriage. Can you produce one instance of a gay marriage actually undermining the sanctity of a heterosexual marriage, or […]
Red Herrings (BBA VI)
Kevin Baas, in "My conversation with a person from another world", gives us a record of an electronic exchange he had with a Bush/DSM* apologist, who is, as Mr. Baas notes, clearly from another world. My favorite part of the exchange is where the Person From Another World (or PFAW) loses his dismissive cool and […]
Anal Sibation
Pope Benedict, in his first clear pronouncement on gay marriages since his election, on Monday condemned same-sex unions as fake and expressions of "anarchic freedom" that threatened the future of the family. I was getting a little worried there: what was taking him so long! After all, he'd known for years that gay marriage was […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
"The Battle Against the Truth"
Are we doomed to repeat history? By May of 1973, the White House coverup was unravelling, and the stalking of Richard Nixon by the wider press corps had begun. Woodward and Bernstein had been more than vindicated. The Nixon Administration, mired in a losing war in Vietnam, was also losing the battle against the truth […]
How Big is Aruba?
[Update: For those who are looking for an answer to the question, the Caribbean island of Aruba has an area of 193 sq km (74 sq mi), about the area of Washington, DC.] This just in from the public-radio station I listen to most days, WBJC*: There is some sort of search, evidently with teams […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Writer or Wonk?
In my early blogging days, I tried doing politics for a little while — a very little while, actually, but I don't really find politics all that interesting. I am not consumed by the feeling that the activities of self-important, inside-the-beltway personnel (NB: "inside the beltware" is only about 5 miles from where I type […]
More Guns = More Death
Joel Shurkin, in "The actuarial cost of gun violence in the U.S." (2 June 2005), summarizes the results of a report (yet to be published) that looks into the cost of handgun violence in the US. These are the bits of his gloss that I found the most telling. In a study to be published […]
Wow! What Commas!
Every time I quote something from The Huffington Post, I usually make a remark about all the writing errors (grammatical, punctuation, syntax, spelling, you name it) in the piece I'm quoting. Why, I keep wondering rhetorically, doesn't Arianna pay me a reasonable if somewhat over generous retainer to copy edit the pieces from her "celebrity" […]
Ode To Dick (BBA V)
In yet another instance of "how could I pass up a title like that": Compared to George W., Richard Nixon had an all consuming passion for the truth. The Watergate transcripts are basically a desperate attempt by Nixon to keep his lies straight. He was genuinely concerned about what lies he had told to whom; […]
Unrealized Moscow
For most of my adolescence, I planned to make architecture my profession. I drew plans and sketches of buildings, read books on the subject, took four years of drafting classes in high school, the whole thing. Why it was that I then went to college and majored in physics I don't really know; I can't […]
In: All, Reflections, The Art of Conversation
Is the Memo Too "Reality Based"? (BBA IV)
In a remarkably lucid, detailed, and calm-voiced piece to appear in The New York Review of Books on 9 June 2005 (written 12 May 2005) called "The Secret Way to War", Mark Danner writes about the unfolding of events leading to our invasion of Iraq, and the significance of the Downing Street Memo. The [Downing […]
Hot-Headed, Zealous Atheists
I was fascinated by this chronological sequence of quotations from a piece by Don Herzog, "blast from the past (one)" (at Left2Right). Although some of the passionate distrust of atheists like myself has apparently dissipated in the last 200 years (despite the current attempts at a resurgence), hence some of the excitement, I do feel […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, The Art of Conversation
I Win, You Lose
Geraldine Laybourne ('The NY Times Has No Idea "What Women Want" ') was not too pleased with John Tierney's recent piece in the NYTimes ("What Women Want"): Tierney’s conclusion was women don’t like to compete. Hello? So, she imagines writing a "Dear John" letter from which I lift this excerpt: You understood how talented and […]
Tchotchkees for Christ
I have been known, at times, to exhibit either bad taste or else an unnatural fascination for tacky things. Although I don't suffer nearly so badly as some of our friends, I do have a smallish collection of really tacky nativity scenes that I put out at Christmas time as a sort of atheist's nod […]
Really Old Jokes
Sometime recently I posted something and called it an "old joke". Well, that was nothing. Now I've gotten a glimpse of really old jokes, thanks to John J Emerson's "700-year-old Syriac Jokes" (and his participation in the History Blog Carnival). Find out, for instance, why the rooster lifts one leg when it crows, or why […]
In: All, The Art of Conversation
Post-Modern Disassembly
At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble – that means not tell the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to deliberately mislead or conceal. Nevertheless, he […]
Give Me a Sign….
Not that long ago, Isaac came home with word that the letters on the illuminated sign outside a church he passes on the way to his commuter-train stop had been rearranged to read "My Clits Wet Is Yours?". Loads of good, clean fun, although we notice that recent advances in church-sign technology have given us […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Sacrifice Only When Necessary (BBA III)
In a Memorial-Day editorial, "Memorial Day/Praise bravery, seek forgiveness" (Minneapolis StarTribune, 30 May 2005), the editors of that paper share their thoughts about the implications of the "Downing Street Memo": Nothing young Americans can do in life is more honorable than offering themselves for the defense of their nation. It requires great selflessness and sacrifice, […]
Drive that F-Rod!
Thank GOD that the American Family Association has finally boycotted Ford for being "the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle"! I KNEW that Taurus I bought always seemed a little swishy going over potholes. Did you know that if you rearrange the letters in Ford, they spell "F-Rod"? […]
Provoking Iraq (BBA II)
Allegations and indications of a pre-Iraq-war conspiracy to manufacture provocations for war continue to appear. This weekend, the London Times ("RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war", by Michael Smith, 29 May 2005) reported that THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 […]