Money
Gas prices
Harry Boswell has "some thoughts about gas prices": When you bought your enormous SUV with the huge V-8 engine, there was a sticker on the window. That gas mileage number on the sticker? It meant something. Stop whining.
Steve Casburn
Miscellany
Negativity in blogs
In his article "The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged", George Packer notes that "bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another". I have noticed that blogs (including this one) tend to be negative, snarky, cynical, accusatory, etc. I wonder if that's because
Music
Lyrical surprises
As I was listening to the Beatles' White Album recently, for only the third or fourth time since high school, I realized that "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey" is about sex. Somehow I didn't pick up on
Music
The shorter White Album
Many Beatles fans question the group's decision to release The Beatles ("The White Album") as a double album. Was there really enough good material to justify four sides? What might a single album crafted from that material have sounded like? Compact discs and computerized playlists make
Houston
Half-Price Books: The home of serendipity
I was browsing the CD racks at my neighborhood Half-Price Books yesterday when I found three old CD singles that I doubt I would have been able to find had I been looking for them. But I would never have thought to look for them, so there they were.
Miscellany
Successories®: A bad sign
Someone wrote recently that the best indicator that a large newspaper is good is that it does without an ombudsman. Why? Because good newspapers hire good editors. Good editors keep around competent reporters. Competent reporters don't need an ombudsman to clean up after them. Successories® are the ombudsmen
Politics
The Amazon primary, as of May 12
Since February 3, John Kerry has collected $134,557 in the Amazon primary, while George W. Bush has collected $31,030. Since April 10, the Kerry advantage has been $34,137 to $6,782.
Military
Another take on Fallujah
The blog Belmont Club has kept up a running commentary from late April through now on the military situation in Fallujah. It argues that the situation is nowhere near as bleak as the press is portraying it. Worth reading.
TV / Film / Radio
2001 explained
I watched Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey years ago, and found it boring and baffling. After looking at this site, though, I might give the movie another try. (Warning: Site has slow-loading Flash animations. They're worth the wait, though.) [Link courtesy of Dale Keiger.
History
Warren G. Harding and the bad CEO
In 1999, facing the prospect of Governor Bush as President, I read the definitive biography of Warren G. Harding to begin to understand what a Bush presidency would be like. People forget that Harding was a popular president: A handsome man with an attractive personality; a man who looked like
Intellect
On the eccentric fringe
I hate to think of myself as being part of "an eccentric fringe", but Johann Hari makes a good point about the death of Burkean conservatism in his article about the philosophy of Agatha Christie. (Also: Hari notices that "The minute a character is described as an
Miscellany
Elsewhere...
Mark Schmitt points out a couple of innovative ways in which the Bush administration is treating the United States government as an extension of the Republican Party. Mark Hasty asks a good question: "Why [can't you] just major in football, basketball, hockey, etc., in college?" And