My mother e-mailed this morning, pointing me to an article by Stanley Fish titled Will the Humanities Save Us?, and a follow-up piece titled The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two. Both were published on his blog at the New York Times. My mom was curious what I thought, but the articles are very interesting, [...]
This New Yorker article on Manny Ramirez (which is wonderful, and definitely worth the time) quotes Johnny Damon as saying that in Boston, “Manny could be Mayor”. Which is a good point, actually. I’d never really thought about who Manny reminded me of, but Tom Menino would have to be on the list.
And now I have proof.
A good article in today’s LA Times, about a drive around Afghanistan’s Ring Road. (It took me way too much effort to avoid any of the obvious puns about “Ring Road” and “Ring in the New Year”)
Ultimate in today’s Boston Globe. A pretty good article, and written for folks who don’t play themselves…
“Morale was deteriorating, and it was all Yossarian’s fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.” – Catch-22 I’m not sure what it was about this quote that jumped out at me this morning, but something did. For those who haven’t read [...]
Yesterday’s Pressbox column talks about a new paper by a couple of UChicago economists. They’ve analyzed the role of economics in determining media bias in the United States, with interesting results: to wit, competitive pressures will have a mitigating effect on natural bias. That said, though the math may work, I’m not sure that I [...]
Because I know there are a lot of total nurds who read this blog… Draft of my first paper for my class on the First Amendment. The topic: “Define what the Supreme Court means by Clear and Present Danger, and the circumstances under which the government may prevent publication.” It’s the first draft, and it’s [...]
Francis Fukuyama, writing in the New York Times Magazine, explains the neoconservative political philosophy and how it’s failed. (A suggestion: go read this now, before it falls behind the TimesSelect curtain.) Taz notes the article as well, though I think he’s wrong about how many people Fukuyama means to include in his reconsideration/renunciation. I think [...]
What I was just reminded of, randomly: Once, for instance, my father asked me a series of questions that suddenly made me wonder whether I understood even my father whom I felt close to than any man I have ever known. “You like to tell true stories, don’t you?” he asked, and I answered, “Yes, [...]
Combination of two things in today’s post. First, some thoughts on Joseph Mitchell, now that I’m nearly done with Up In The Old Hotel; and from that a reaction to a statement that a friend made the other day: “Sometimes I feel like reading is just a waste of time.” Joseph Mitchell was a writer [...]
I went to see Good Night, and Good Luck, at the Kendall Square Cinema. Sort of a last minute decision on the way home from work; I’m not usually much of a solo movie-goer. The movie covers a short period in the life of Edward R. Murrow, a newsman for CBS from the 30′s into [...]
Three different things that I’ve been thinking about, and which I’ve decided to combine into one big-ish post since they’re all basically reviews of things. Blink, by Malcom Gladwell Blink is, basically, an argument that the part of our brain that forms our first impressions is right more often than it’s wrong, and that we [...]
A couple of books that were mentioned to me today, that look very, very cool: The New New Journalism Literary Journalism The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism Some day, I tell you, some day…. [update, 4:44 PM -- WOOHOO! Turns out that my mom, being wonderful, already owns a couple of [...]
Ooh, look, more columnists for sale! Where have we heard this one before? On the other hand, for a short time only, there’s a Christmas sale going on…Abramoff had to pay $2,000 for an op-ed supporting his clients. I hear the asking price is down to $1,500.* [* - note, asking price for an op-ed [...]
Found in the book Daddy-Long-Legs, by Julia Webster. I was browsing through the Project Gutenberg catalog and happened to stumble on it. The context, very, very briefly: this comes as part of a letter from an orphan to the kindly gentleman who is putting her through college. I forgot to post this yesterday, so I [...]
(courtesy of Doonesbury@Slate) And a bonus: an archive of Doonesbury Christmas strips.
From the NYTimes coverage of the Iraqi election comes this lede: In a day remarkable for the absence of large-scale violence, millions of Iraqi voters, many of them dressed in their best and traveling with other family members, streamed to the polls today to cast ballots in a nationwide election as Iraqi leaders predicted that [...]
No editorial content in today’s post, just a link to one of the most wonderful things ever. Project Gutenberg is a collaborative effort to put as much of the literature of the world online as possible. They’ve digitized something like 17,000 books at this point, all of which can be downloaded free of charge. Related [...]
I’ve been reading Tom Friedman’s From Beirut To Jerusalem. It is, basically, a compilation of his experiences and opinions on the Middle East, gathered during his many years there as a correspondent for United Press International and The New York Times. As Jeff pointed out when he passed it along to me, it’s not written [...]