3,471 United States servicemembers have now been killed in Iraq. By one count, there have been between 64,632 and 70,783 reported civilian deaths in the war, although the best estimate of excess civilian deaths due to the war (the Lancet study published last fall) gives an estimate with a high degree of certainty in the […]
Archive for May, 2007
Human nature
Leaning over the metal rail of a small footbridge I looked down, countless times, at the brook, which ran the length of my hometown. The fluid beneath was not pure sparkling water, but a concocted soup – a collaboration of rainfall, natural runoff, and pollutants from chemical and other types of factories operating upstream. To […]
The script, part 1
The other day, following the Internets wherever they would lead me, I came across this link offered as an elaboration on some joke or other. It appeared to be a very clever parody of a script of an episode of Friends. A brief excerpt (the entire first scene): CENTRAL PERK (ALL PRESENT EXCEPT JOEY) MONICA: […]
Happy Memorial Day…
…To you and yours. May you have a lipstick party of your own this holiday weekend.
The “communists” at my college were hypocrites, or, How sometimes a cigarette tastes oh-so-good
Dear Web Journal, Every liberal arts college has them: that group of kids that are kinda artsy and maybe a little dirty and give you that “I hate authority because my old man used to make me mow the lawn. I don’t like mowing the lawn” attitude. When these kids get to college they don […]
Thursday open thread: Construction of masculinity edition
Because any blog, no matter how high-minded, eventually turns into a YouTube dump. First, Verka Serduchka’s near-win for Ukraine in the recent Eurovision contest (via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog): Next, a big, bad, breakdancing man has some bad moral luck (via Justin the Birthday Boy): Finally, that video than which none more awesome can […]
When keeping it real goes wrong
“Walt Disney is being kept cryogenically frozen in the basement of one of the medical buildings.” –The only thing I remember from the UCLA orientation tour According to Neal Gabler’s new biography, Walt Disney was so obsessed with a vision of his boyhood home that he wanted to recreate it as the entrance to Disneyland. […]
Four concerts, four nights
Bernhard Fleischmann at the Austrian Cultural Foundation, April 27 Bernhard Fleischmann is on a great compilation album I have from a few years ago of German and Austrian IDM groups covering Slowdive songs, so when E. Tan said he was playing a free show as part of some wholesome European state-sponsored arts goodness, I was […]
Book talk
Do you remember the first book you ever owned? The first one you ever loved? The first one that really knocked you on your ass? I remember loving Bartholomew and the Oobleck, one of the slightly more serious — and wordy — Dr. Seuss stories. I loved Sherlock Holmes. I loved The Hobbit so much […]
Stella on the island
Stella took a plane and a boat to an island where the ocean is blue. She stayed in a delightful guesthouse where the towels entertained and the ocean mesmerized. People lived in the town and played basketball. Visitors watched the sunset. Someone lived in a conch house. At the south of the island is a […]
