The thing that struck me first about the arson in the South Korean Subway was that it could happen anywhere. A guy, probably a nutball (although I wouldn’t necessarily trust the South Korean press not to cover up an…
Yes, very funny. Thank you, -Vardibidian….
That’s the problem with reading old stuff… I started reading Louisa May Alcott’s Flower Fables, and realized I didn’t really have any sense of the time they were written in. Middle of the 19th century, yes. Civil War. Dickens. But…
This is my month for coming across the original of things I only knew in parody. I knew they were parodies, but it’s a bit of a shock to see the original referenced in a newspaper or book. Actual: Lives…
Elie Wiesel, in a recent lecture, said that he had so much difficulty defining what he was for, that he decided to start with what he was against. His list (from my notes): ignorance, hunger, racism, hatred, comparisons, humiliation,…
I’ve been reading Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches and enjoying it very much. Rather sad, of course, but in a different way than Little Women is sad, or Demi in Little Men saying “Don’t call me Demi any more. I…
Today’s Boston Globe article about the Big Dig reminded me of the story about the two african dictators talking about how much they personally had benefited from foreign investment and aid. The host gestured out from the porch of his…
A second thought, after linking to Freidman on France… I’m getting sick of the jokes about the weakness/sissiness/unmanliness of the French. I’m an American, in case you haven’t yet picked that fact up from context, and as far as I…
I suppose the worst part of starting a blog (if that’s the appropriate name for this Tohu Bohu) is the pressure on that first entry. It should be wise, witty, surprising, kicky, just a bit sexy, and give everybody in…