The registration cost for the 1997 Geo in 2011 was $178.42. That was the last time I registered that car. Last year it was my first with the 2005 Mini. It cost $274.35. Surprise, surprise, the dollars didn’t change this year; it remained $274.35. That’s still a bit of a sticker shock considering the consistently …
I feel about flu shots and the inevitable sore shoulder I get after being vaccinated the way Archie Goodwin felt about mornings: I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the …
Apologies to Russ Hodges for appropriating his language from 1951. Dodgers closer Kenley Jensen and catcher A.J. Ellis celebrate after the final out in a 7-6 victory over the Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / September 19, 2013) After the final out some of the …
Continue reading ‘The Dodgers win the Pennant! The Dodgers win the Pennant!’ »
Today Speaker John Boehner capitulated to the hardest of hard-right members of his caucus by agreeing to try to defund the Affordable Care Act while funding the government for at least another three months. “We’re going to continue to do everything we can to repeal the president’s failed health care law,” Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) …
Here’s the Fresh Air interview with Linda Ronstadt upon the publication of her memoir “Simple Dreams.” I got it last Friday in the mail and I finished it Saturday. It’s too short! If you’re looking for a gossipy tell-all, go elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a story of a musical journey, it’s an excellent …
Faust?!? Yessiree bob, it’s Faust, with Newman as the Devil, James Taylor as God, Don Henley as Faust (in this version he’s a student at the University of Notre Dame), Linda Ronstadt as Margaret and Bonnie Raitt as Martha. Here’s Rolling Stone’s review by Al Weisel. The musical poses a question Newman first raised in …
Reuters has a nice straightforward account of how the city is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four children and injured more. Over at Lawyers Guns and Money there’s a guest post by Robert Widell, who has just written a book titled “Birmingham and the Long …
It turns out that the molasses currently killing marine life in Honolulu Harbor is a product of Maui’s sugar harvest. HC&S — which operates Hawaii’s last sugar plantation — produces the molasses as a by-product of sugar and Matson brings [it] from Maui to Honolulu Harbor by barge. “We’ve been pumping molasses for thirty years,” …
This is sickening, and it’s also puzzling. Apparently some 1600-2000 tons of molasses is shipped from Honolulu to Oakland every week. A pipeline broke under the harbor and spilled 233,000 gallons into the water. The stuff is so viscous it sank immediately to the bottom and sucked all the oxygen out of the water, resulting …
Continue reading ‘Fish (and crab, and eel, and . . . ) kill’ »
I’m reading Robert Goldsborough’s “prequel” to the Nero Wolfe books, “Archie Meets Nero Wolfe”. It’s okay. Archie’s language is much more refined in this than it was in the early books Stout wrote. He was a true roughneck in “Fer de Lance,” “The League of Frightened Men,” “The Rubber Band,” “The Red Box,” and “Too …