Stephen King wrote in his lengthy essay on the craft of writing fiction, Danse Macabre, that terror is the purest emotion, because it captures the entire mind and emotion of a person. If he can’t terrify his reader, he would… Continue Reading
I’m taking a short break from grading papers for my recently-concluded online classes and going through some bills that came in the mail today. I notice that my bill for my student loan is unusually low. So I scrutinize the… Continue Reading
There are fewer better explainers of evolution than Richard Dawkins. There are also fewer bigger critics of religion than he, and perhaps it’s no wonder. No field of science has been attacked more directly, consistently, or successfully than evolution in… Continue Reading
I’m reading Dan Brown’s Deception Point right now. I’m unimpressed with the realism. Supercruising planes landing on glaciers, a rather callous disregard of national boundaries, juvenile politics, patently silly escapes from certain death, ice guns, the Aurora project, and and… Continue Reading
For better or for worse, America has a two-party system. As one commentator pointed out recently, this is not likely to change for the foreseeable future. Assuming that the Democrats re-take control of Congress, about all we’re promised is a… Continue Reading
I suspect that this will help Phil Angelides more than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seriously, how many of her voters were going to vote Republican otherwise? But, um, I’m still thinking that we’re going to see the Governator re-elected.
As my good friend at the Valley Press points out in an unsigned editorial (that I know perfectly well he wrote) it’s clear that the Republicans in the Administration have made a bloody, awful mess of things. But no one… Continue Reading
Turns out one in five schoolchildren in the United Kingdom does not have the ability to locate the United Kingdom on a map. For a long time, we’ve been bemoaning the lack of education in the United States. I suppose… Continue Reading
Is Target better than Wal-Mart? Oh, come on, do you have to even ask? I have had every single experience this guy complains about. Of course, there’s still nothing like Trader Joe’s anywhere. Tomorrow The Wife and I need to… Continue Reading
I’ve sort of noticed this phenomenon, too, although not really to the degree that the Times describes. When I’ve last flown, the planes have been reasonably clean. Of course, my last flight was on Midwest Express, which might be a… Continue Reading