I’ve been down with the flu, so not much from me this week,1. If I ran a national television news division, I would immediately hire Mollie Hemingway to do lengthy reported pieces.2. Imagine you are in your late teens or early twenties. You are in the top third of your age-group for intelligence . . . . Continue Reading »
1. I saw Paul Ryan on today’s Fox News Sunday . Ryan did a pretty good job making his proposed spending cuts and premium support Medicare policies seem like nonideological common sense He did about as well as could reasonably have been expected given the subject matter. I was really impressed . . . . Continue Reading »
1. So the sequester was the Obama team’s idea and, if the sequester actually happens, a plurality of the public is going to blame the Republicans. 2. Sequester, fiscal cliff, debt ceiling. Do any of these terms have any meaning to the average person? 3. Obama got a bunch of tax increases with the . . . . Continue Reading »
1. The circumstances (even taking account demographic changes favorable to the Democrats) are favorable to a narrow Republican win. The circumstances of 2008 were the most favorable for a Democratic win that I’ve ever seen. So Romney has that going for him. 2. I don’t . . . . Continue Reading »
I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is huge Radiohead fan. He admitted that he wasn’t as fascinated with their latest album as he was with their earlier efforts. Apparently The Bends and OK Computer were okay, but Kid A and Amnesiac were phenomenal. When I asked, a la . . . . Continue Reading »
Speaking of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is somewhat cliché when it comes to rock criticism. Its awesome harmonic sonorities in terms of the then latest of pop/rock music of the day, as well as the studio technique on the multi-track recorder, is indeed unparalleled. Pet Sounds is what Pink Floyd . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanksgiving is a holiday almost entirely devoted in spirit to the virtue of gratitude and it is the most distinctively American of all our holiday traditions. Whether or not Thanksgiving is ultimately of Protestant or Catholic origins, it is certainly the case that it has become not only an annual . . . . Continue Reading »
Secondhand Smoke has the scoop . Watching bioethicists consense is like watching water condense: dull, impersonal, and you know how it’s gonna end. Still, I’m sure there are many who would prefer it to all that nasty , dirty , tumultuous political stuff! . . . . Continue Reading »
This is the strangest thing I’ve seen all day.Well, that’s not strictly true. But it’s true enough for our purposes. The thing is, I need to think of a religious reason for you to want it. Uh . . . you . . . want to make some kind of point about creationism and evolution? See no . . . . Continue Reading »
Okay, so, I’m thinking Dante —Dude, I know he’s a poet. No, I don’t really know what they do, either. Wait, wait, he’s a poet, but he’s, like, a poet . . . warrior. With a sword. You know, “The sword is mightier than the pen.” Whatever. Anyway, so he . . . . Continue Reading »
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