Thursday Is a Venting Day!

Pardon the mess.  My head just exploded. Never mind his hurt fee-fees over the mean things Obama said, and the strong possibility he’s only saying this to hurt Rick Perry’s chances … this is Karl Rove himself saying it’s offensive to describe America as a Christian nation. Yes! For years now the Christian right, specifically […]

The Villagers and Their Narrative

Just heard NPR Morning Edition correspondent Steve Inskeep cut Rep. Barney Frank off in mid-sentence (audio link here). Inskeep says (at 4:13 on the tape) “the biggest part of the federal budget is entitlements.”  Frank says “No, wrong, I’m sorry, the defense budget is bigger than Medicare, and Social Security is in fact self-financing, and […]

Friday Grab Bag

Good lord, yesterday’s post was quite the whinge.  I need to work on feeling less insecure, which is the same thing as saying I need a swift kick in the ass.  I blame my dog. Schatzi’s still down in the dumps, and so, by extension, am I.  She’s listless, slow, barely interested in things that […]

Friday Grab Bag: Gridlock, Gas Gauges, Germans

Blog neglect again?  By way of lame excuses, I’ve been busy with historical articles for my hashing blog and working on recipes for my cooking blog.  Fat lot of good that does you, dear Paul’s Thing reader, right?  I’ll try to make up for it with some random Friday observations. ——————– I may not drink […]

Waterfalls and Hashtags

Two heavy overnight rains in a row, almost like a real monsoon.  Sometimes I sleep through the storms, but I know they’ve hit when, glancing out the kitchen window while getting my first cup of coffee in the morning, I see topsoil and fertilizer from Donna’s flower garden spread over the patio and the bottom […]

Ow, My Head

Very sore this morning.  Yesterday the dermatologist removed a sebaceous cyst from the top of my scalp.  There must be a lot of stitches … I can’t count them yet because the bandage doesn’t come off for another hour … but however many there are, they’re tight, tight, tight.  A poor man’s facelift!  I’m sporting […]

Light Tuesday Bloggage

The scandal du jour is how the gathering of tabloid gossip has escalated from eavesdropping on insider chitchat to outright espionage.  In Britain, reporters from Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World are accused of trying to get the dirt on royals, politicians, and sports stars by bribing bodyguards and household staff, hacking phone lines, and […]

Quota Systems

A friend wrote the other day and asked me if I’d ever read anything by Stuart Archer Cohen.  I fear for my friend’s mind, because just two years ago … on her recommendation … I read Cohen’s The Army of the Republic and sent her a copy of my brief review, which I’ll repost here: […]