Confession: I have a copy of Excitable Boy, probably purchased shortly after its release in 1978. I never listened to it thoroughly; for some reason it just didn’t click with me. So I don’t fit in with those who have sincerely felt the loss of Warren Zevon. I intend to give the album a fair …
I claim no originality here, but a relatively dull football game tonight caused me to wander about the link list and gather nuts and berries. A few pecans (no raspberries here!): Josh Marshall suggests that Rummy and friends are reliving history, specifically the infamous “stab in the back” charge leveled against post-WWI German politicians by …
This week, international experts enlisted by the American-led occupation authorities estimated that the loss of oil revenues and cost of operating a civilian government in Iraq is projected at $20 billion for 2004. That figure was given to diplomats from potential donor nations in Brussels this week, and by all accounts they were stunned. “Think …
The Band. This was the second album the group released, after Music from Big Pink (which see). One of the reviewers at Amazon makes a good point: both these albums were released during the height of the psychedelic revolution, yet this music went back to American roots (although the group had four Canadians and only …
Despite all of ESPN’s efforts over Labor Day, today is really the first full day of the college football season (or, since Notre Dame didn’t start until today, that’s what a friend of mine [and Irish alum] would say). Thus, FanBlogs. …a group weblog dedicated to college football. This effort is the brainchild of a …
…Wielding its power as one of the largest purchasers of medications in the United States, the V.A. has made it possible for millions of veterans to pay just $7 for up to a 30-day prescription. Thousands are signing up for the program every month. Yet for all its apparent success, lawmakers have disregarded the V.A. …
George Mason University (hey! I took two summer courses there between my sophomore and junior years in high school!) has been working with City University of NY to create a digital repository of reactions to the terrorist attacks that day. The project contains “more than 100,000 digital files: e-mails, instant messages, video clips, audio recordings, …
Texas gave us George W. Bush, but it also gave us Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower. The title of this essay is “Living In a Kleptocrat Nation,” but it could equally be read as a call to arms. The unforgivable transgression of today’s leaders is that they have abandoned this common wisdom of the common …
Public health? Nah, gets in the way of economic redevelopment. So let’s just have EPA relax its rules. “According to an internal memorandum issued in mid-August, the agency will no longer prohibit the sale of PCB-contaminated land unless the property is severely poisoned.” It’s amazing what having no administrator for the agency allows you to …
Last night our phone rang five different times, but when we answered, there was no one at the other end of the line. As you can imagine, this became pretty annoying. On the sixth time, I decided to just listen for a while to see if I could identify the source of the call from …