Thanks to everyone who chimed in on the homework blegging on Barbara McClintock. You managed to explain some very complex ideas in ways that made them accessible to my seventh-grade friend, for which she asked me to say thanks. The girls’ school actually has an excellent “homework helper” Web site for parents. It’s a very nice resource if, for example, you’re trying to help your kids with factoring polynomials and you’re a bit fuzzy on the subject, not having factored... Read more

I haven’t written anything here about the Writers Guild strike. That’s odd, since I’ve been reading about it obsessively, but I wasn’t sure I had anything unique to add to the conversation. I suppose I could offer this paraphrase of James 5:4: Look! The [residuals] you failed to pay the workmen who [provided the scripts for your downloadable and streaming online content] are crying out against you. The cries of the [screenwriters] have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.... Read more

Your Father which is in heaven … maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. — Matthew 5:45 Atlanta had about 1/5 of an inch of rain yesterday, which brings the city’s total to about 1/2 an inch since Gov. Sonny Perdue gathered “lawmakers and ministers on the steps of the state Capitol to pray for rain.” I can’t fault Gov. Perdue for trying. The drought... Read more

Here’s something I genuinely don’t understand about the right wing noise machine. Right wing bloggers, talk radio hosts and Fox News readers spent the first few weeks of spring lambasting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her trip to Damascus because, they said, talking to the Syrians is Bad, it Legitimizes the Enemy, etc. This required a bit of nimble footwork on their part, because they had to pretend that no Republican members of Congress took part in these... Read more

‘Why have we feasted,’ they say,   ‘and you have not seen it? ?  Why have we humbled ourselves, ?  and you have not noticed?’?  Yet on the day of your feasting, you do as you please   and exploit all your workers. Your feasting ends in quarreling and strife,?  and in striking each other with wicked fists. ?  You cannot feast as you do today ?  and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of feast I have chosen,?  only a day for... Read more

I should say, first off, that I like paying my rent and, you know, eating. These are Good Things in my book. And since my paycheck comes from Big Corporate Media — and specifically from online Big Corporate Media, and therefore from the ad revenue for online BCM — I don’t want to saw off the branch I’m sitting on by suggesting there shouldn’t be any such ads. But since my livelihood is, in fact, staked on this kind of... Read more

The building I work in also provides office space to creatures from another universe. We work upstairs; they work downstairs. We smile and nod as we pass in the lobby or on the way to the vending machines, but we have only the vaguest sense of who they are and what they do and that’s just the way we like it. We’re in news. They’re in advertising. We keep separate. This is a cardinal rule in print journalism. Advertising and... Read more

The Onion’s AV Club offers up a list of “17 Memorable Thanksgiving Television Moments.” It hits the highlights for me, including the Buffy episode with syphilitic Xander and pincushion Spike (“You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story”), and the funny and poignant “Shibboleth” episode of The West Wing (“Morton, I can’t pardon a turkey. If you think I can pardon a turkey, then you have got to go back to your school and insist that you... Read more