September 28, 2012

The very old radio in my Subaru has basically two settings: the default and the backup. The default is 102.7 FM, the Peak, a modern rock station out of Vancouver that has a tolerable mix of old standards and new music. The backup is 790 KGMI AM, the local talk station that runs Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and local newstalker Dillon Honcoop. The switch goes from the Peak to KGMI whenever the Peak a) has an extended commercial... Read more

September 28, 2012

My friend Scott Kayser and family have been the talk of the town this week, and then some. The other day, I got breakfast at a coffee shop in nearby Everson. One of the regulars was said to be running late because he was at home watching Family Feud. This wasn’t a regular thing for him. He stayed home to watch because some locals, the Kaysers, went on Family Feud and kept winning. The show was taped well in advance... Read more

September 27, 2012

I was at the usual Sunday night thing the other week. A relative newcomer found out that I worked for a sister site to Real Clear Politics. We bantered a bit, then he tried to pin me down politically. “Who are you voting for for president?” he asked. “Bob Lott,” I said. “He’s even got the perfect slogan: Bob Lott, Why not?” “No, but seriously…” “I am serious,” I cut him off. “We don’t elect a president via the popular... Read more

September 26, 2012

Great news! The Mountain Goats have a new album “Transcendental Youth,” official release date October 2. You can preview pretty much the whole album right here. While I struggle to pick out a favorite, here’s one of the singles, “Cry for Judas”: Read more

September 25, 2012

… and third helpings. These were among the lessons that your diarist picked up tonight helping to man the “soup” kitchen at First Baptist in downtown Bellingham. Mum had this idea that what the world really needed was for the Lott family to make the meal for one of these regular Tuesday night dinners and help serve it. She threatened to turn on the water works if we didn’t go along, so it’s hard to make the case that this... Read more

September 25, 2012

One of the problems with Googling yourself — an occupational necessity in the modern word business — is, occasionally you get news of your death. The latest Jeremy Lott to go caught a fatal bullet in Buffalo, New York “on the 1200 block of Fillmore Avenue” according to WIVB.com. (more…) Read more

September 25, 2012

My family, Whatcom County division, got together Sunday on the anniversary of grandmother Shirley Bailey’s death. We had pizza and ate her beloved chocolate chip cookies and told stories. The theme that emerged was, Wow, she put up with a lot from us. For instance, the story Dad told was of the time we bought a bunch of yo-yos. He had been playing around with his and gotten quite good at it, so he called his mother-in-law into the living... Read more

September 25, 2012

Conservatives/libertarians/businessmen are often accused of “worshiping money.” It’s not literally true, of course. You don’t see people bowing toward Wall Street several times a day or treating the local banks with reverence or even usually bathing in their money a la Scrooge McDuck. But just imagine if people did worship money! We could make the sign of the dollar rather than the cross, as in Atlas Shrugged. We could measure devotion to the penny. And as for people who offended... Read more

September 23, 2012

That was my grandmother, Shirley Bailey. She died a year ago today. This is some of what I had to say at her funeral: You have probably heard it said that we all die alone. Our final moments are so far removed from common experience that we might as well be long-eroded solitary islands, finally swallowed by the rising sea. That’s a bleak way of looking at things, but note well: “bleak” does not always mean “true.” (more…) Read more

September 21, 2012

There are some annoying things about Dredd. To, wit, the official title seems to be Dredd 3D. I saw the first showing of the version that doesn’t require the funny glasses. However, let me just say this: If they gave out Oscars for acting from the nose down, Karl Urban would be a serious contender. Read more


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