Talking with a friend who is a writer last night reminded me that both my dilletantish efforts at composing fiction, or my ill-formed dreams of putting together something useful to offer as a nonfiction text, are up against an astonishingly… Continue Reading
I know very well that if I were willing to, I could totally be this guy. It would involve a short-circuit of my ethics, of course. It wouldn’t be all that different than being a lawyer, really, right on down… Continue Reading
Earlier today, I was e-mailed a link to an article that someone found interesting. Another person on the e-mail link said that he too found the article interesting, but was taken aback by the partisan rhetoric, ad hominem attacks, and… Continue Reading
Normally, the right thing to do with a troll is ignore him. (Pretty much always a “him” rather than a “her,” and it’s a good bet that it’s a “him” who doesn’t have a girlfriend.) If you give feedback and… Continue Reading
I expected better of you, MSNBC. “Gas Pipe in Chicago Effects Prices in Milwaukee Area.” Really? Perhaps I should not have expected you to get that one right. Perhaps this is advanced stuff for, you know, journalists. Perhaps this is… Continue Reading
There’s a piece of traditional wisdom that goes something like “Eskimos have twenty-seven different words for snow.” Upon hearing this, the listener is supposed to be impressed somehow at the depth of variation and description in the Eskimo language, and… Continue Reading
Almost exactly nine months ago, I offered an opinion which contained an element critical of conservative media after it appeared that the White House had chosen to disfavor Fox News. (Conservative Readers, I hope, will note that I was more… Continue Reading
With Algeria tying England just now, that means all we need to do to advance to the second round is do what England by rights should have just done — beat Algeria. Hey, we did it in 1803, so we… Continue Reading
I just received the most extraordinary email. A reader went through a bunch of my posts and corrected many of my (plentiful) grammatical errors. After three years of minutely examining the same sorts of things from students, this feels like… Continue Reading
As a colleague put it to me yesterday, it’s amazing the amount of nothing that is happening in the world. It seems that there is a lot of fruitless effort to do something about the oil spill in the Gulf… Continue Reading