One Smart Way to Fight Terrorism

No searches for those missing WMD! No mythical yellow cake uranium! No IEDs!No endless repetitions of  ”We’ll be welcomed as liberators” and “Mission accomplished.”
 And we don’t even have to invade anyone!
Let’s have more of this.

That “Wise Latina” Problem: Racism or Racialism?

It’s always blackly humorous when an uncomfortable truth lurches out into the middle of our prevaricating world and causes people, many of them highly intelligent, to start tying themselves in knots and committing little acts of intellectual hari-kari.
I refer of course to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s comment about the “wise Latina” and the WL’s [...]

Updike’s Last Works, and My Updike Story

  At least for now, I’ve foresworn another extended period of mourning for John Updike, America’s greatest writer (though I reserve the right to break out the elegies at a moment’s notice.)
Meanwhile, two posthumous collections from the master have appeared. These could be the last, though given Updike’s amazing productivity, who knows how many others [...]

Slam-Dunk Sonia?

 
Slate’s John Dickerson shows why the Repubs would have a hard time derailing the Sotomayor Supreme Court nom even if they had the votes, which they either do or don’t depending on whether the Minnesota Senate race is ever settled: 

Woman: Check. (She’ll be the third in history if she makes it.)
Hispanic: Check. (She’s the first [...]

OMG: The Menace of Texting

A New York Times article sounds the alarm over the social and health problems faced by  today’s texting-mad teenagers–you know, the ones who  go way, way too far, sending 500 or so texts a day rather than just 150-200  like our own sensible kids. Experts fear all kinds of developmental consequences. C F U care here.

Memorial Day Thoughts

I’ve gone back through the past on Muse Machine and picked out some entries appropriate for today. 
 
From 2007, here is a radio commentary about the death of Al Brank, my grade-school principal and a decorated hero of World War Two. 
From 2008, here  are thoughts on war and loss from Lincoln, Obama, Hemingway and others.  
Finally,  ”In [...]

More Bad News on Newspapers

I want to say something vibrantly positive about newspapers, I do; I want to say they’ll be with us forever despite the continue drip…drip…drip of bad news about the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the now-vanished Rocky Mountain News, the incredible shrinking Dallas Morning News (for which I just re-upped my sub–at $360 [...]

“The Story of Stuff” Packs a Punch

If you haven’t yet seen the buzzworthy short film, “The Story of Stuff,” block out 20 minutes and watch.  It’s a powerful, graphic reminder of what most of us know whenever we open a closet or walk through the garage: We’ve got way too much stuff.
But the film’s real value is to remind us of what’s not [...]

If I Could Tweet. . .

If I could Tweet,
Which I can’t,
From the post office,
Where I was
Standing in line,
For much too much too long, 
But had no phone,
I would Tweet this:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time.
 
Since only I am speaking, alone,
That would not be too many characters.
Or is it [...]

News: Dems To Rule Forever

Or at least for a long, longish time, according to a stimulating new site called The Stimulist.  Here’s why.  (Hint: Rhymes with “Stubya.”)

The Oddest Odds, Part 2

Picking up again on the topic of bizarre coincidences and whether we can ever establish mathematical odds of this stuff happening.  I first blogged about these strange events  here two years ago, and more recently here.
Anyway, a few days ago I decided I would blog again about the odds of odd occurences, since I’m planning [...]

Agreeing With. . . Al Sharpton?

Well, yes, for once. 
At a meeting in Washington to launch the McKinsey report, Al Sharpton, a black community leader and all-round stirrer of controversy, was on the platform alongside more orthodox education reformers and administration officials. He called school reform the civil-rights challenge of our time. The enemy of opportunity for blacks in the U.S. [...]

The Pleasure of “Seven Pleasures”

Last week I reviewed Willard Spiegelman’s Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness for The Dallas Morning News and found much to like in it. 
The author makes a good case that real and lasting happiness grows not  from contemplation of grand theories but from actually doing things–walking, dancing, looking and more.
Read the review here if you like.

When It’s Really Hard to Defend Free Speech

When he ran for Texas governor a few years back, comic/musician/mystery novelist  and former Texas Jewboy Kinky Friedman gave this response to reporters who asked where he stood on gay marriage:
“I believe love is bigger than government,” Friedman usually said.  ”And besides, they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”
It was a [...]

How Odd Are the Odds on That?

“What are the odds of that happening?”
It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves, and I seem to be asking it more frequently these days. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been taking notes for a magazine article about coincidence–but wait, wait: Before you think I’m hearing the old Twilight Zone theme music, or setting up a seance [...]