"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
In the news
I’ve been away, attending a weekend hashing event in Colorado, shirking my duties as a blogger. We’re only just home . . . still unpacking, in fact . . . so this entry will be disorganized and short. Passing through Albuquerque last Thursday on our drive north, I heard on the radio that some New […]
The stupid, it burns: This is what’s on a band T-shirt being rounded up by the local school board in Sedalia, Missouri, after parents complained. Typical of the complaints is one by Sherry Melby, parent of a marching band member: “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” Melby said. “I don’t think evolution […]
The media occasionally report on Christian evangelicalism and proselytization in the military services, particularly at the military academies. One journalist who tracks stories about non-believing and minority religion servicemembers coerced into Christian worship is Ed Brayton, who blogs about this and other issues at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Last week he published a letter […]
Oh for Christ’s sake. Back in April, President Obama signed a law establishing September 11 as an annually recognized “National Day of Service and Remembrance.” Reaction on the right? Uh, about what you’d expect: The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 […]
I can’t tell you how many times friends have declared, apparently believing what they’re saying, that the times are worse than ever: the kids more insolent, the wars more horrific, the price of goods never higher, the future never more uncertain. My response has always been to ask if they’d like to trade lives with, […]
Digby, writing at Hullabaloo today about the anti-health care crowds that have been mobbing town hall meetings recently: This point is one that continues to amaze me. These people are coming unhinged over expanding access to health care. It’s not about taking away guns or mandating abortion or outlawing churches or some other issue about […]
My personal thoughts on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates? You probably think I’m about to say I agree with President Obama that the Cambridge police acted stupidly. No, actually, I think they acted predictably. Racism is a given in situations like this. Whites know it; people of color know it . . . if […]
Pwn: internet slang term, derived from the verb “own,” meaning to appropriate or conquer, implying domination or humiliation of a rival. — Wikipedia. From the New York Times, 21 July, 2009: Driven to Distraction U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving By MATT RICHTEL Published: July 21, 2009 In 2003, researchers at a federal agency […]