Just a quick comment on the to-do with the Tea Party et al. vs. IRS (particularly one or more of the subdivisions of the Cincy office) — and allegedly vice-versa: When I give money to a group with the word "Party" in the title, I damn well expect them to spend… Read full post »

         I'm going to start sidling toward my topic with bragging about a relative of mine you probably have never heard of. My cousin (of some degree) Joy Erlichman Miller organized the Holocaust memorial in Peoria, Illinois, and tried to make the body-count more understanda… Read full post »

"We can pull a sledge together without being kemmerings" —

I.e., approximately, We can cooperate without liking one another.

— A saying on the planet Gethen in Ursula K. Le Guin's

The Left Hand of Darkness (ch. 6)

          … Read full post »

            Super Bowl Sunday, 22 January 1984, saw the one-time airing of one of the most elegant pieces of cinematic art of which I am aware: Ridley Scott's TV ad for the Apple Macintosh, "1984."

       &nbs… Read full post »

Porn in the Public Interest (Condoms Redux) 

Headlines in the News:

"Gates Foundation Funds Development of High Tech Condoms"; "California’s landmark condoms in porn bill (AB 332) clears first Assembly committee, 5 to 1" (References: Gates, AB 332) 

     … Read full post »

             It's usefully provocative to ask, "What has posterity ever done for us?", and it is a truism that "Posterity don't vote." Still, there is something to be said for the idea (and conservatives used to say it), that each generation is obligated not on… Read full post »

            I'm going to start out with a kind of disclaimer. Shortly I'm going to talk a bit about a segment on The Colbert Report and note that it's kind of fan-boy esoteric. Since I don't often write about The Colbert Report, my reference below might imply… Read full post »

From various places on the web one can get a rough definition of "terrorism" as the "systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population" with the goal of achieving political objectives. The most immediate way to combat terrorism is to refuse to be afraid.… Read full post »

From an AP cosmology story, much repeated, March 2013:

            “The universe is described amazingly well by a simple model,” said Charles Lawrence, the lead Planck scientist for NASA […].  ***

 … Read full post »

Aquila non capit muscam;

Illegitimi non carborundum;

"Get to where, / You don't have to care."

             As George Orwell taught, there is much to be said for mere decency as a key virtue, and most attacks on "political correctness" ar/… Read full post »

Good-Friday, 2013, Looking Backward

 And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back

where all those people and their homes had been.

But she did look back,

and I love her for that, because it was so human.

So she… Read full post »

Yo, Fellow Old People!

            As soon as you can, get copies of Harmony Korine's  Spring Breakers (2013) and send them out to everyone you know in the US of… Read full post »

       ``That's it!'' Jerry exulted, smashing his fist into his palm and wincing. ``That's it! Don't you see what that means? For the very first time in the eons-old history of the universe the civilized, intelligent races are banding together against evil, to combat it wherever i… Read full post »

         I'm not writing here about those "Eureka!" moments, grand epiphanies or satoris. I've never had grand anything, but I have had the little epiphanies: "ah-hah" moments or "Oh, yeah" moments — or "Oh, shit!" moments on something not just immediate and p… Read full post »

Primum non nocere (First, do no harm). 

          In an Associate Press story from March 22, 2013, Tami Abdollah reports that "Los Angeles County sheriff's officials have zeroed in on the recreational use of nitrous oxide […], cracking down o… Read full post »

            I recently heard an excellent presentation by an area mayor giving an informal "State of the City" analysis. The major part of his talk was on what politicians and pundits call the "challenges" facing the city, which generally had to do with increasing p… Read full post »

         Another great advantage of Netflix, or recorded media in general, is how quickly DVDs and more advanced technologies can get you past or through the boring parts.

         I see a lot of movies in theaters. First, I'm o… Read full post »

Back to Basics #46

            According to an opinion piece by Henry M. Seggerman in The Korea Times back in December of 2010, "North Korea has 11,000 heavy artillery pieces pointed at Seoul and could kill one million Seoul residents in a few hours. Nort… Read full post »

            On her National Public Radio show on 5 March 2013, Diane Rehm got into an exchange that helps clarify the issues with doctor-assisted suicide.

            Early in the show, Ms. Rehm talked wit… Read full post »

     I shall assert, with all due modesty, that America, perhaps the world, needs more assholes like me.

     I will clarify that assertion.

     First, I cast no aspersions upon the anus, neither that of humans nor more generally. The anus … Read full post »

Back to Basics #45 

            It's an old, weak, and mildly blasphemous joke that "Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you" is bad advice for a literal-minded masochist. More seriously, one should balance this Golden Rule wit… Read full post »

            When I was a child, people still read Aesop's fables, and I grew up on, among other stories, "The Ant and the Grasshopper." Except I grew up on a somewhat Disneyfied version.

            The st… Read full post »

Dear Marketers (Tele- and Otherwise):

I'm pretty confident you won't be reading this, but I do want to get the word out, at least out there, on record, if only in the figurative ether.

If you call and ask, "May I speak to Richard?", there's a good chance I'm… Read full post »

"Manners Are Small Morals": Back to Basics #44

            I didn't put "spittoons" in my title here, because it's a somewhat long word and a word that might in itself turn away some readers; also, in combination with "pubes,"… Read full post »

            I was on my high school's rifle team, so I've shot a fair bit in my life, but at paper targets. During the Vietnam War, however, I tried to avoid shooting at live targets, and becoming. Currently, I do keep weapons handy where I live, but… Read full post »