Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Hate-Based Illiterates
Shakespeare's Sister ("Irritated by Ignorance: A Rant"), reading exposés of the activities of hate-based fundamentalists groups written by Deborah Levinson (who is apparently fearless enough to wade into that noxious swamp), presents us with some barely literate, dripping-with-hatred comments from Ms. Levinson's mailbag. The vitriol is astonishing and yet predictable; in other circumstances it might […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
My Top 20 Mystery Authors: 2005
I started compiling and writing this list at the end of 2004. I didn't manage to finish it then, so I'm having a go now and giving it this year's number. Perhaps I can get through all twenty before the end of this year. The list is written as though it is a compilation of […]
The Unimaginable Future
Science and the wondrous inventions and perils knowledge and creativity produce blaze around us with such profligacy that I sometimes just don’t notice. I forget how staggeringly lucky I am to live in this miraculous age – at this moment in history. I perhaps forget to laugh at the sheer dumbass irony of the fact […]
Queer Smells
My niece sent me a link to interesting news about a new study (it's always a new study, isn't it?): WASHINGTON — Scientists trying to sniff out biological differences between gay and straight men have found new evidence – in scent. It turns out that sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes […]
In: All, Splenetics, The Art of Conversation
To Scratch Naturally
Even more radically [referring to his athieism], [Jeremy] Bentham condemned laws against same-sex relations, commenting, "It is wonderful that nobody has ever yet fancied it to be sinful to scratch where it itches, and that it has never been determined that the only natural way of scratching is with such or such a finger and […]
Microsoft Born Again — Ho Hum
I saved these excerpts weeks ago, from a letter that Microsoft President Steve Ballmer wrote to his employees, and released publically by Microsoft, about the debacle and outcry following the company's disastrous decision to withdraw support from gay-equality legislation in Washington. I thought I would have incisive commentary, but I've found that, even faster than […]
Bill Moyers on … Important Stuff
Indulge me: this is Bill Moyers. We’re seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable. […] Let me assure you that I take in stride attacks by the radical right-wingers who have not given […]
Public-Affairs Programming
Admittedly, being — shall we say — underemployed for most of the current President's time in office, it's rare that I suffer laughter, even a chuckle, in an unguarded moment. However, it does happen, and we might as well rejoice in the event and give credit where credit is due. This time, it's thanks to […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Behold the Beech
We visited with friends last night, the sorts of friends with whom one has challenging factual discussion that often require the use of reference books, either to settle some contention or to illustrate some interesting if arcane bit of knowledge. Our discussion turned at one point to trees, and they produced a fascinating volume: The […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book
Presidential Memorials
Capo, writing at the Cleveland Park Men's Club (those of us living in or near Washington DC will recognize the geographic reference — oddly, there's a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt there, in the Washington National Cathedral), in a piece called "GWB Memorial: The Writing's on the Wall" (16 May 2005), begins by saying A recent […]
Go Beavers!
My favorite moment in sci vs. fi history was when the JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, operated by Caltech] launched the Cassini space probe of [sic*] Saturn in 1997. Soon after, the JPL phone rang; attorneys for clothes designer Oleg Cassini were demanding to know how JPL had the effrontery to name a space probe after […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Speaking of Science
Philip Morrison, 1915–2005
Philip Morrison, physicist and public educator of science, died on 22 April 2005 at the age of 89. He was, among other things, Professor Emeritus at MIT. I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now — I wanted to say something, because Morrison topped my short list of scientists who understood how […]
The Gay, Gay Right
What adds a peculiar dynamic to this anti-gay juggernaut is the continued emergence of gay people within its ranks. Allen Drury would have been incredulous if gay-baiters hounding his Utah senator [in his novel Advice and Consent] had turned out to be gay themselves, but this has been a consistent pattern throughout the 30-year war. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
W: The Original Countermajoritarian
This brings us to the filibuster. The primary objection to the filibuster is that it is countermajoritarian. That is, it enables a minority of senators (41 in the current Senate) to block proposed legislation and nominations. But there is nothing odd about that. In a government determined to avoid "capture" by any faction and designed […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
[Update 28 October 2005: Now that we top the charts at Google for this phrase, it seems appropriate that we provide the original lyrics to the theme song from MisterRogers' Neighborhood — see below.] I had a moment earlier when I was a bit gloomy and reflecting on how uncivilized Americans and American politics seems […]
Hot Cocked
On Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a hushed, carpeted room in one of the National Science Foundation towers, in Bollston, Virginia. I was on a review panel, and we were quietly deliberating the relative mertits of a stack of proposals. One of the reviewers, who was in constant touch with her staff and the […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!
My Religion
Come to think of it, I don't think I've mentioned so far in this venue my own, personal lack of religious faith (i.e., that null set of beliefs which some people persist in confusing with a religion of its own, even though I think that that metaphysical conundrum is much simpler to resolve, say, than […]
In: All, Eureka!, Such Language!
Unconnected Bits of Countries
Thanks to a blog named Tottyland (whose author is usually more interested in shirtless rugby players than in unusual facts from geography), I recently learned this fascinating fact: Did you know that there are twenty two bits of Belgium inside Holland including bits of fields? "What in the world could this mean?" was my first […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., The Art of Conversation
The Discovery of Helium
"Observations of the 1868 [solar] eclipse led to the discovery of a bright yellow emission line in the spectrum of the [sun's] chromosphere, which is normally not observable except during a few seconds just before and just following totality [in a solar eclipse]. What happened next is nicely described by C.A. Young in the 1895 […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
A-F Friendly
"Riff" is a great word, although I feel a bit — not quite estranged, since we never had a relationship to begin with — distant from "riff", and I doubt that I will ever be as close as I am to truly favorite words like "madcap" and "chuffed". No doubt this is tied to my […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Such Language!