Senior American politicians who cannot tell a Sunni from a Shi'ite have been rightly roasted in recent years. However, to learn about a culture completely alien from your own is difficult. My ancestors are mostly from Western Europe. I grew up hearing the names Locke, Kant, and Descartes,
Commerce
Update: Look here for updated information. What good is it to have the right to cancel a subscription during a one-month trial period if the company gives you no way to cancel it? I signed up for ESPN Insider a month ago. A week ago, I realized that, as someone
One reason why I wanted to have a blog again was to have an outlet to share these sorts of things—ideas and memories that have been put away for years or decades. My spring cleaning this year led me to wonder what I would do with my boxes of
LIS + DataSci
A paraphrase of something I wrote in 1997: Human societies have two ways of storing knowledge: Written down in libraries, archives, etc.; and memorized in people's minds. The amount of knowledge that is written down is ever-increasing, but the amount that an individual can memorize is biologically limited.
Music
A charming video of the Getz/Gilberto version of "The Girl from Ipanema".
Video
The pseudo-documentary "My Winnipeg" is playing at the Hollywood Theatre. One of the film's recurring themes is sleepwalking, which might explain why I fell asleep while watching it.
Commerce
I find these quotes from Bernstein fascinating because popular history books so often mention money, but so rarely describe what that money was. [The eight-real "Spanish dollar"], which flooded the European currency markets in the sixteenth century, was approximately the same size and weight as the Bohemian thaler—
Life
Several weeks ago, I bought a tarot deck and checked out a book about it because I was intrigued by the idea of learning how to give readings. The book's author recommended going through the deck and reflecting on how the archetype of each card relates to my
Politics
People who accept positions with the federal government are supposed to serve the American people. According to a report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice (as relayed by the blog Talking Points Memo), the Gonzales Justice Department had something more specific in mind when
Music
* The Best of the Columbia Years, 1943-1952 by Frank Sinatra (97 songs for $9.99! I just wish it included the infamous "Mama Will Bark"...)
Life
I picked up the mothership of all Brita pitchers from the Deadhead Fred a couple of days ago. Yep. Brita calls it the "Ultramax", I suppose because it is the largest they could make a pitcher and still have it fit through the Panama Canal. No more of
Music
The song that this blog is named after, "Superficial Cat" by Edwyn Collins, is now available on iTunes.