In this morning’s New York Times, somebody named Woody Hochswender writes that people should stop giving him grief about driving an SUV. It’s an incoherent mess of an article, chock full o’ logical inconsistencies. I’m going to break it down,…
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…
This morning’s New York Times web site has a new poll, and that means it’s time for … Meaningless Data! According to the poll, 56% of respondents feel “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” This is…
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…
Well, and it’s about time I wrote about the war. The Iraqi war. That one. I’ve been reluctant to write about it, and I’m still reluctant, and I’m overall very reluctant, and here goes. I am, reluctantly, pro-war. I follow…
In one of those that’s-just-cool stories, the New York Times reports that Andrea del Verrocchio’s sculpture of David had originally been intended to have Goliath’s severed head behind David’s left foot, but that wouldn’t fit on the pedestal, so…
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…