Who Do You Love
I’m a fan of the blues. And Ellis Otha Bates McDaniel was a fine blues man. He turned simple folk songs (“Old MacDonald Had A Farm”) into powerful blues anthems (“Hey Bo Diddley,” the song that lent its name to… Continue Reading
Death
Antoine Lavoisier, Martyr Of Moderation
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier is best known as the father of modern chemistry. This picture of him and his wife Marie-Anne, a full-size print of the original (which can be found at the Met) graces the wall of my living room.… Continue Reading
Death Of A Loving Woman
Mildred Loving passed away Friday, at the age of 68. Mrs. Loving, and her husband Richard, successfully challenged the Commonwealth of Virginia’s legal ban on miscegenation, and won for themselves the right to marry, in 1967. Her husband, Richard, died… Continue Reading
Missed Saving Throw
Like a lot of people my age, I was a nerdy teenager who played Dungeons & Dragons. I’m sure it did things like stunt my athletic skills and keep me away from meeting girls. In retrospect, that doesn’t seem to… Continue Reading
Another Dead Musician
I remember as a teenager I liked Jeff Healey’s blues-rock album. The kid from Canada, struck with blindness since he was one year old, who taught himself how to play guitar, was such a good story, and the album was… Continue Reading
Gruesome But Kinda Cool
Famous deaths — would modern medical technology have been able to save the victims? A doctor in Montana offers his opinion: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, James Garfield and William McKinley would have made it. Robert Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln would probably… Continue Reading
Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici
Today marks the death of William F. Buckley, Jr., the intellectual progenitor of the modern American conservative movement. Though I despise some of the social excess that movement has taken on in recent years, for the most part I remain… Continue Reading
A Waste
It’s such a shame to see reports that Heath Ledger died. Unknown and probably unknowable if it was a suicide or an accident, but it seems he overdosed on sleeping pills. Young, good-looking, the world at his feet. He had… Continue Reading
The Very Cool Sir Edmund Hillary
The first mountaineer to climb the highest point on Earth died today. It’s well-known that Sir Edmund was the leader of the expedition that first reached the summit of Mount Everest, and that he and his Sherpa guide, and lifelong… Continue Reading
Assassination In Pakistan
I’m unnerved to learn that earlier this morning, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated near her home in Pakistan. It’s seemed to me for a long time that Pakistan has a critical role to play in the ongoing geopolitical struggle which we… Continue Reading