Intellect
Geoffrey Wheatcroft scorns how silly many of "the literary intelligentsia" were when responding to September 11: Imaginative writers are distinguished not by a sweeter character (too often very much not), greater intellectual honesty, or even deeper intelligence, but—apart from the gift of expression which is their stock
Media
A recent Associated Press article demonstrates how the news media often miscover medical and scientific news. The title and first paragraph of the article sound promising: Study: Even mid-life diet change can extend life WASHINGTON (AP) -- It has long been known that laboratory animals live longer on a low-
Sports
I was a Jim Tressel fan even before he was hired as Ohio State head football coach, and the work he has done in Columbus has only increased my admiration. Tressel has been criticized recently for the Buckeyes' three consecutive close wins at home against weaker teams. San Diego
Houston
Jason Smith, bass player in Strangelight and a friend from high school, helped put together a show at Helios Friday night, featuring Alan from Dallas and Pale from Houston. I enjoyed both bands -- standouts were Alan's fiddle player and closing song (called "Sigh"); and Pale'
Books
I have given up on Ed Regis' book, The Info Mesa (Norton, 2003), because of the shallowness of the writing. The final straw: [page 50] "Catholics have a lot of kids" is cliché, and calling a man a "good Catholic" right after mentioning his divorce
Education
A middle school teacher in Nebraska, on mandatory standardized testing: Politicians (and business people/capitalists) are competitive. They have a challenge, they try harder, and succeed. They see this as the solution to education: raise the bar, tougher standards, more competition. They don't see the reality, that not
History
"The choice of Athens as capital [of newly independent Greece], a town dominated by the imposing ruins of the Parthenon and with its associations with the glories of the Periclean age but in the early 1830s little more than a dusty village, symbolised the cultural orientation of the new
Education
ex parte -- G. K. Chesterton, 1906
Intellect
A book review in the New Statesman pinpoints two valid parts of Michel Foucault's work: "[...] [I]t is easy to forget that Foucault's influence stems from a simple but penetrating insight, developed early in his career: that the history of western civilisation is also the
Remarks
I presume that Samuel Beckett did not intend to write an 18-word secularized summary of the Book of Ecclesiastes, but: "All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Politics
An e-mail to Fox News: Al Franken's upcoming bookthe lawsuit that Fox News has filed against its release I'm amazed that a news network seems so unaware of the concept of "free publicity". /s/ Steve Casburn
Remarks
is -- Clive James, praising Mark Twain's "homespun demotic" style