The Ibuprofen Overreach

I’ve noted  before, in the Bush Chicken Hawk and  Bong Hits 4 Jesus cases, that students don’t park all their rights at the schoolhouse door, but everyone knows, and other court decisions have made clear, that minors don’t enjoy the full range of rights granted to adults (starting with the fact that by law,  kids must attend [...]

Sanford and the Boys: What Are They Thinking?

Again, as so often before, we must trot out the eternal question: What, what are these guys thinking?
Dunno, but here’s what they’re NOT thinking:
A. “You ’know, I’ve got a pretty good deal here–decent salary, lotsa perks, some power. . . why, reporters even listen when I talk.  Why would I wanna mess this up?”
B.  “Can I really [...]

Can Micropayments Save the Newspapers?

In previous bemoanings of the dying American newspaper, I’ve hoped that techies would come up with some kind of simple, unintrusive system of micropayments that would allow us to pay small fees for news we get online. The always-bright James Fallows takes the ball a few more yards here .

Sanford: Alpha-Male Idiots, Media Disgrace

A drum roll, please, as we add Mark  Sanford to the Clinton-Spitzer-Edwards-Ensign-Vitter-Craig Parade of Alpha-Male Idiots that’s been a regular feature on this blog. Again I shake my head, dumbfounded: What  possesses people who already have so much to arrogantly, blindly  grab even more?
Their collective autobiography title: Insatiable. As Springsteen sings in “Badlands”:
Poor man wanna [...]

Summer Solstice Garden Report

Given the problems underscored in the gag-inducing documentary Food, Inc., discussed here the other day, it’s clear we need alternatives to this out-of-control food behemoth.
One such step is growing some of your own food if your circumstances and energy permit. As I’ve mentioned in several posts, I’ve been planting a garden for the past nine [...]

“Food, Inc.” is Hard to Swallow

I didn’t think anything could make America’s Industrial-Caloric Big Food/Corporate Farming Complex less appetizing than Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation. But now comes Food, Inc., a documentary that, according to early reviews, may have us exploring the option of never eating again. One troubling review is here.
We really have cooked up a dilemma here. [...]

Blogger’s Shame: “I Was So Wrong About Twitter!”

Okay, okay. I thought I was so smart in ridiculing Twitter.  I thought, “Why would I care about getting a 140-character blippette,  or whatever it is, from somebody stopping by Burger King for a double cheeseburger?”
I mocked. I sneered.
But now that  Twitter has proven so valuable in the Iranian sorta-revolution that the U. S. State Department [...]

The “Heroes” of. . . Woodstock?

I knew the word “hero”  was getting badly overused once we started slapping it on every single cop and firefighter who ever lived, even desk jockeys who hadn’t chased a crook in years.  Now, with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock hard upon us, rock profiteers have given the term yet another beating.
Guys, get real. Some of [...]

One Moment in Time: What’s Yours?

Around 1910 Joseph Conrad, a master of the English novel whose second language was English (ouch), wrote a short novella called Youth: A Narrative. I have it printed in one of those Penguin miniature editions, a tiny book in itself.
Youth is told, like many Conrad works including Heart of Darkness,  in a long flashback by [...]

Shelby Steele on Sotomayor

My man Shelby Steele, celebrated in earlier posts like this one, brings his highly useful “challenger” vs. ”bargainer”   analysis to the Sonia Sotomayor nomination. I think he may be the country’s most interesting commentator on race.  Check it out for a different perspective.

Rev. Wright Proves How Much U. S. Has Changed

It’s not that a change is gonna come–it’s already come. And the new comments from the unrepentant Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor for almost twenty years, underscore how much things have changed. Quoth the Rev the other day when he was asked if he had spoken to Obama since the president took office:
“Them Jews aren’t [...]

Sotomayor: A Third-World Yalie?

I’m still keeping an open mind on Sonia  Sotomayor, hoping along with David Brooks that her “Wise Latina” wisdom-of-the-blood stuff is just a dues-paying veneer left over from the 70s.
But as I’ve made clear in numerous posts, I just don’t have patience with highly privileged people–whites, blacks, browns, anyones– who play both sides of the street, [...]

Congress’s “Change Experts” Ready to Roll

From today’s NY Times:
But it will be up to the federal government, which will own a majority of General Motors when it emerges from bankruptcy, to tackle what is perhaps the most difficult challenge in Detroit: transforming G. M.’s  insular culture — at times as bureaucratic as the government’s — to make the company more [...]

More Summer Reading Ideas

As we prepare to convince ourselves once again that we’ll have more time to read this summer, here are two of my recent book reviews from The Dallas Morning News:
How to Sell by Clancy Martin. Sounds like a business  self-helper, but it’s actually a novel written by a philosophy prof who used to work [...]

Obama Broadway Bashers: Not Too Petty

I like to avoid invective on this blog, since we’re wading waist-deep in it today, but I can’t get over the mean-spirited and petty people–including some Repubs, talk show heads and a  letter writer in today’s Dallas Morning News–who want to crucify Obama over his quick trip up to Broadway to have a little dinner and [...]