Book Report: Magic Street
Well, and Orson Scott Card annoys me. Not just as a person and a commenter on public affairs, in which capacity he is probably no more annoying than, say, Dennis Prager or Michelle Malkin or a dozen others. I don’t…
I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.
The metaphor employed by Judge Roberts reminded me of the old joke about three old umpires talking over a few beers. “There’s balls and there’s strikes,” says one of them, “and I calls them as I sees ’em.” The second,…
A quandary
Here’s my question: should I finish reading Conqueror’s Moon? Here’s the thing: Julian May has written a few books that I liked very much, a few more that I thought were pretty good, and a few that I thought were…
choice and the chooser
You know, Gentle Reader, how there’s this whole thing where apologists for Our Only President and his aristocrats imply that the people who were still in New Orleans when Katrina hit were morons, and the response of Left Blogovia is…
Book Report: Forfeit
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One thing about enjoying an occasional re-read of Dick Francis books is that when one’s personal stash is in boxes, the library is bound to have plenty of others. I picked up Forfeit because I don’t own a copy and…
I’d walk a mile for a straw
Once again going from Collision Detection, here’s a bit of good news. Vestergaard Frandsen has prototyped (Can I verb that?) the LifeStraw, a “straw” that contains a water purification filter. It’s 25 cm long and 29 mm in diameter—about an…
Book Report: Once Upon a Marigold
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I think the reason I picked up Jean Ferris’ Once Upon a Marigold off the library shelf was that the library shelf in question was the Nutmeg shelf, and on the whole, the Nutmeg seems to be pretty good. If…
portable, digital, plausible
The always interesting Clive Thompson has a bee in his proverbial about the iPod. Which is OK. The latest thing he addresses is the latest research on how people use their portable digital music players. The research (by Solutions Research…
American Venice
OK, if you want to know the difference between the two parties, how about this. If, when Bruce Babbitt talks about rebuilding New Orleans as an American Venice, you feel your breath catch a little, and your eyes get dreamy,…
Book Report: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume I
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An email specfic discussion group that includes Your Humble Blogger chose as this autumn’s books the Chrestomanci novels of Diana Wynne Jones. I had read them, a year or two ago, and actually own them. Sadly, all my paperbacks are…