Hangover Square By Patrick Hamilton Patrick Hamilton is a mid-century British author who was for a period a successful novelist and playwright. By the time of his death of cirrhosis of the liver, he was neglected. He had succumbed not just to alcoholism but to bitterness brought on by the failure of Marxism to deliver [...]
Black Eyed Peas I don’t like holidays, but I do like food. My way through holidays is to cook. For Christmas (not my holiday…a savior ain’t in the cards for MAN), I love the Sicilian tradition of seven fishes, even if they aren’t all fish. One of my old dear friends who died too young, [...]
Kim Jong-Un has surged ahead of other GOP presidential hopefuls in Iowa, edging out Ron Paul (at 24%) with 26% of likely GOP caucus goers. Romney is in 3rd (20%) and Gingrich has dropped to 15%. The margin of error as usual in GOP contests is huge.
This morning the news was all about Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos. The lead of the story was that he is a great quarterback and an aggressive Christian, proud of his faith. I don’t really give a shit about football, but I REALLY don’t give a shit about his fucking faith. Please, [...]
It isn’t necessary to look for evidence that the right wing is insane, but it’s fun. A small example that dropped my jaw on Friday night. I was watching McLaughlin on PBS. I don’t know why I subject myself to it but I’ve always enjoyed the shouting match, and for the past few years McLaughlin’s [...]
A friend and colleague, Dave, appeared in my office on Friday to show me this description of a talk being given here at Cornell on colonialism and Okinawa. Dave is studying Japan and thought he ought to go to the talk, but the description made him wary. He and I like to talk about economics, [...]
If a blogh is not a place to reveal ones deepest shame I don’t know what is. So I am going to confess that for a number of years in high school I was that most shameful thing of all, a Deadhead. I listened to Grateful Dead albums obsessively, I read books about them and [...]
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, one of my oldest friends married a Russian woman he had met in the Ukraine. She didn’t love the Soviet Union. She hated it. An only child, she grew up with her mother waiting on long lines to get the simplest things, [...]
On a fall or winter Sunday there is nothing better than a pot of slow-cooked meat with noodles, greens and root vegetables. Yesterday I made a Chinese version with chicken. It took about two hours total and was perfect after a day of raking leaves, turning the garden beds and chopping a pile of old [...]
Specimen Tank
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