Yesterday was a sort-of victory for LGBT youth: the Boy Scouts of America...
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Blatter “appalled” by racist abuse of Balotelli: hey Sepp – less talk, more action
Racist abuse of AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli by AS Roma fans in yesterday’s Serie A match caused the official to briefly suspend play. After an PA announcement warning the offending supporters to cease and desist, the game was resumed. While these things are hardly uncommon in Italian football (or throughout the rest of Europe, […]
Spirit of boondoggle departs quashed Los Alamos project, finds new one to possess
The construction of an expensive new plutonium pit facility has been abandoned. Will it be replaced a collection of smaller buildings? Thanks in large part to lawsuits filed by the Los Alamos Study Group, last year the Obama administration halted the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos […]
ArtSunday: You can take the boy out of the working class, but can you take the working class out of the boy?
As I’ve noted before, I grew up working class in the South. My neighborhood, my school, my family and friends, it all oscillated between “redneck” and “white trash,” and yes, there’s a difference. I wrote not long ago about the challenges facing those of us trying to climb the socio-economic ladder when nothing in our upbringing […]
Maira Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty: an appreciation of New York and New Yorkishness by a New Yorker
Maira Kalman’s collage/slam book/illustrated diary The Principles of Uncertainty probably deserves better than it’s going to get here. This latest completed read from my 2013 reading list has put-up job written (and drawn) all over it. While this book has charm, it also has smarm in abundance. Only a New Yorker with “the right connections” – in publishing, in society, in […]
Beautifully horrible, horribly beautiful: Botkin’s Lost Tales
A quick turnaround with the next book from the 2013 reading list. This time I ventured into a new area: picture books. No, I haven’t decided to re-read The Runaway Bunny or The Cat in the Hat (although they’re both very worthy of repeated perusal in their own right – and for the pleasurable memories they’d trigger for me of reading them to […]
Quick! OMG! Hurry! Tomorrow’s the second Sunday of May!
To better prepare readers of The Atlantic for appropriate ways to observe Mother’s Day, Nicole Russell, in an article captioned “[t]he second Sunday of May is a source of frustration and disappointment for men and women alike,” shares a little history and some pointers. Yet, somehow, she managed to contribute to the disappointment by including this […]
Forced miscarriages, however horrible, should not qualify as “murder”
Yesterday I heard that Ariel Castro was being charged by the prosecutor with several counts of “aggravated murder” for each of the miscarriages he caused Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and/or Gina DeJesus. I don’t have a problem with Castro, assuming he’s found guilty of the various crimes that he’s been charged with, being locked away […]
Would Pakistan respond to India’s use of conventional weapons with nukes?
Theoretically Pakistan is poised to respond to Indian military retaliation for a terrorist strike with tactical nukes. It’s debatable how much nuclear weapons add to national security. But what’s undeniable is that they add layer upon layer of complexity, sprinkled with convoluted and even counterintuitive thinking (such as how missile defense systems are seen as […]
Goddamned wasteful gummit spending: Who’s the highest (over)paid “public servant” in your state? (WTF?)
A Special Guest Commentary From Randy Wayne Boudreau, Grand Dragon of the Alabama Tea Party All right thinking citizen patriots hate gummit. Wasteful bureaucrats living off hard workers like you and me. Might as well be welfare queens. And now, thanks to the good folks at Deadspin – private, non-union workers, I should note – […]
Climate Science for Everyone: How much heat can the air and ocean store?
Water stores a lot more energy than air does. So when energy stored in the oceans is released back into the atmosphere, the results are dramatic.
So you wanna be a citizen journalist? Good luck with that.
Citizen journalist. Citizen journalist? How does that adjective modify journalist? What is a citizen journalist? How does a citizen journalist differ from a plain, ink-stained (or digitally adept), adjective-unfettered journalist? CJs (let’s call them that; it sounds cool) are in demand. MSNBC wants them. It asks, “Be part of the dialogue of the issues affecting […]
WordsDay: Articles of faith…
I returned to the history genre for the next book in the 2013 reading list – or so I thought. The Road to Salem is a “constructed” memoir – historian and archivist Adelaide Fries (a descendant of the original Moravian settlers she writes about) tells, though the use of the autobiography of Anna Catharina Antes- Kalberlahn/Reuter/Heinzmann/Ernst (yep, she was […]
Minot’s launch control fail: Reason #532 why nuclear deterrence is a fragile foundation for peace
To concerns about human error in nuclear launch control add moodiness. Robert Burns of the Associated Press reports that the Air Force removed authority to control – and launch – nuclear missiles from 17 officers of the 91st Missile Wing in Minot, North Dakota after they were given a poor review for a series of mistakes. The […]
Amanda, Gina, and Michelle survived, but not all women in Cleveland are that lucky
Today Cleveland celebrates the return of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight. We feel a collective sense of gratitude and amazement at their survival and reappearance. I listened to versions of their story covered locally, nationally, and internationally and that feeling seems nearly universal. But they were gone for a decade. Gina disappeared when […]
Showdown looming between the NRA and 3-D printed guns
There’s about to be a really interesting showdown: the NRA versus 3-D printed guns. The NRA had its national convention during the first weekend in May in Houston. NRA Vice-President Wayne LaPierre proclaimed, “We will never back away from our resolve to defend our rights and the rights of all law-abiding American gun owners.” Well, […]
George Lakoff gives conservatives way too much credit
Personal responsibility does not a moral system make. We’re all indebted to the influential linguist George Lakoff for applying his work to politics in recent years. Among his invaluable contributions has been his perspective on framing. For example: It’s a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you — the media, your enemies, […]
