Thank you, Eric N., for introducing me to Jon Talton’s Rogue Columnist. His rant on “What’s really wrong with newspapers” treats the newspaper biz the way a real reporter would if he didn’t already work for the newspaper biz. He follows the money. I recommend the entire piece including — maybe even especially — those bits that bite the hand that feeds me personally. Talton’s critique of the way shareholder’s demands for ever-increasing profits have triumphed over the needs of... Read more
Michael Melia of the Associated Press reports today that: A U.S. military tribunal convening Monday at Guantanamo will hear challenges from attorneys for a Canadian terror suspect accused of killing an American soldier when he was 15 — an age they say should disqualify him from trial. Lawyers for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, who is now 21, argue in a motion on the hearings’ agenda that the judge would be the first in Western history to preside over a trial for... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 397-399 The authors, yet again, subtly point out that Buck and Rayford have opposite impressions of how their recent “interview” went. And by “subtly” there, I’m thinking of the way that Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford subtly expressed her disapproval of wire coat hangers. Here’s the last bit from Buck’s point of view: It would be fun someday to tell Rayford Steele how much that otherwise innocuous interview had meant to him. But Buck assumed Steele had... Read more
Don’t you wanna see what you’re missing? “Say Goodbye,” Tonio K. “Say It Ain’t So,” Weezer “Say So,” Uh Huh Her “Say Something,” James “Say What You Want,” Texas “Scarborough Fair/Canticle,” Simon and Garfunkel “Scares Me More,” Jeffrey Gaines “Schroeder T. Fell,” Twitchen Vibes “Scream in Blue,” Midnight Oil “The Sea and the Rhythm,” Iron & Wine “The Seahorse,” Over the Rhine So anyway, what kind of sick control freak would make his love conditional, based on whether or not... Read more
There is a crack, a crack in everything … It’s Thor’s Day, when we traditionally honor the storm god here by unleashing the lightning of a robust, but hopefully civil, flamewar. One of the first questions when approaching the subject of human nature tends to be are we essentially good or essentially rotten? The Christian answer — “Yes!” — can seem like a cop-out, or a contradiction, or a paradox (the euphemism theologian’s use for those contradictions we like). The... Read more
I’ve successfully launched my personal, private-sector economic stimulus package: A 2008 Toyota Yaris. Like me, it is tall, skinny and frugal. A subcompact with head and legroom, who knew? Between my unanticipated car-shopping and the two-days-and-counting teacher’s strike in my girlfriends’ kids’ district, time for sleep and/or blogging are a bit hard to come by this week. (Just curious — is there a rule somewhere that says students can’t join the picket line? It seems like a good educational opportunity.... Read more
I did not expect, when I got into my car to drive home this morning, that my ride home would be quite so suspenseful, or that it would come to an end not at home but, instead, at a local auto repair shop. The news that it would need a new radiator was, by that point, not surprising, but I hadn’t expected it would also need a new catalytic converter and several other pricey parts that I didn’t really hear... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 395-397 After hearing Rayford Steele’s impassioned sales pitch for faith in “the Antichrist and all,” Buck Williams is rethinking his own beliefs. At the same time, Jerry Jenkins is busy rewriting the preceding 21 chapters of his book, letting us know, retroactively, about things he had neglected or even denied earlier. Part of that rewriting process here involves a fuller picture of the substance of Rayford’s speech. Based on the rather sketchy accounts of that speech we’ve... Read more
Santa Claus is drunk in the ski room … “Red Hill Mining Town,” U2 “Red House,” Jimi Hendrix “Red Rail 9,” Twitchen Vibes “Red Rain,” Peter Gabriel “Red Right Hand,” Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Red Shoes,” Elvis Costello “Red Shoes by the Drugstore,” Tom Waits “Red, Red Rose,” Emmylou Harris “Red River,” BoDeans “Red Red Sun,” INXS The cassette function of my new turntable has liberated many treasures from the long-neglected Big Box O’ Cassettes — including that... Read more
Fresh thread for your Thursday flame war. … This is just a guess. I don’t know what you do for a living or how well you do it, so all I can do is guess. I’m guessing that your immediate supervisor, your boss, knows what you do and how well you do it. If you have any work-related callouses, then I’d also guess that she knows how to do your job and could do it well herself. If you don’t,... Read more
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