When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale; the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great... Read more

MITT ROMNEY’S TIES TO ABUSIVE “TOUGH LOVE” CAMPS FOR TEENS: …As The Hill noted last week, 133 plaintiffs filed a civil suit against Romney’s Utah finance co-chair, Robert Lichfield, and his various business entities involved in residential treatment programs for adolescents. The umbrella group for his organization is the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS, sometimes known as WWASP) and Lichfield is its founder and is on its board of directors. The suit alleges that teens were... Read more

I’VE UPDATED that list of some Iraqi blogs, on the sidebar. These are all blogs being updated fairly regularly (with the exception of the Salam Pax BBC link), mostly personal stories, all very much recommended. Iraq Blog Count is a good place to start. Read more

How I loved our church, and how clearly I can see it still! The old porch by which we entered, black, and full of holes as a colander, was worn out of shape and deeply furrowed at the sides (as also was the font to which it led us) just as if the gentle friction of the cloaks of peasant-women coming into church, and of their fingers dipping into the holy water, had managed by age-long repetition to acquire a... Read more

I must own that I could have assured any questioner that Combray did include other scenes and did exist at other hours than these. But since the facts which I should then have recalled would have been prompted only by voluntary memory, the memory of the intellect, and since the pictures which that kind of memory shows us preserve nothing of the past itself, I should never have had any wish to ponder over the residue of Combray. To me... Read more

“TO DIE THE BOOMER DEATH.” Feel like emailing me about this? Opinions, anecdotes, assorted whatnot? I’m working on a related piece, which I should get done by the end of the week, so yeah, I’d be very happy to hear from you all. Read more

THE RACKET: A PROPOSAL making its way to the House floor would hurt everyone from the average American taxpayer to the struggling African farmer. It would enrich a small number of big businesses in a few dozen congressional districts. It would claim money that could otherwise go to priorities the Democratic majority supposedly champions: environmental conservation, student loans, Head Start, food stamps or children’s health insurance. Even President Bush wants to reprioritize the spending. So what will the Democratic leadership... Read more

Oh, give up,Oh, give up for my blogwatch…Club for Growth: I went to these bars in college. Above the law since 1997! (Or hey, how much does the drinking age destroy social cohesion?) Daniel Mitsui: Ave/Eva. Hit & Run: Like Solidarnosc in reverse. Journalista: How! I’m Dani Moonstar. (Scroll like Minnehaha.) Ninomania has a lot of interesting comments on today’s Supreme Court decisions, esp. on the shift from parental rights to students’ rights, and the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case.... Read more

HOMECOMING: On Friday in the New York City subway I heard yet another accordion rendition of music from The Godfather. Which I like a lot, you know. But when I arrived back home, heavy-laden and panting and sweating under D.C.’s swampist cloud cover, I heard the hometown equivalent, and felt my spirits rise: Out by the Union Station fountain, a man was playing the saxophone and singing hymns into a microphone. I caught “Amazing Grace,” “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,”... Read more

Two drifters, off to see the world;I’m not so sure the world deserves us….–“Moon River,” as covered by Morrissey Read more