"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
In the news
Last night on Twitter someone linked to a National Review Online editorial about Nelson Mandela. I know better than to scroll down to reader comments on right-wing sites, but I did. I wanted to burn my eyes out afterward. Mandela was a saboteur and a terrorist. He was a violent revolutionary. Agreed. So too were […]
A few weeks ago I posted an entry about Lindy lights, the light beacons that helped airmail pilots in the 1920s and 30s navigate at night. A friend sent me a link to another blogger’s post about early aerial navigation aids. Did you know that in addition to the beacon lights, there were also giant […]
Seriously, if they don’t fire Richard Cohen after this, they might as well ask for Obama’s birth certificate and endorse the Tea Party.
By now everyone has heard about Kentucky Senator Rand Paul plagiarizing the work of other writers in his speeches, books, and op-ed columns. The senator’s reaction to the story is evolving: it began with denial; morphed into attacks on Rachel Maddow, who first reported the story; now his staff is busy scrubbing stolen material from his […]
“You know the good cop/bad cop routine in every police procedural ever? Now imagine Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly as the cops.”
One of the things I strive to do is to keep calm and carry on. But oh, it’s hard, with all the stupidity and racism loose in the land. And I can’t decide which is the chicken and which is the egg, stupidity or racism. Maybe they’re the same thing. When racists went after Obama […]
At last, my face is getting back to normal. The dermatologist removed a small basal cell skin cancer from my forehead Monday. I applied ice as recommended that day and the next, but Wednesday when I woke my right eye was swollen almost shut. Same thing again Thursday morning. Today, though, the swelling is almost […]
Yes, those are black-eyed peas on today’s bag. Lame, but I’m not feeling especially clever this morning. I woke up with a swollen black eye, fallout from Monday’s removal of a basal cell skin cancer from my forehead. They said it might swell, and boy did it. I’ll post a photo below … I don’t […]