From the Pew Research Center [pdf link], the General Accounting Office [pdf link] and the Washington Post, the hard news about older unemployed people: Bad news…55 to 64-year-olds have fared worst in the recession than any other demographic. But from The Onion, the same kind of news — Matt Millen on TV simply too muchContinue reading “The frustration of the long-term unemployed: The Onion”
Author Archives: Kit Stolz
We are the new PETM: National Geographic
Their headline is a little less wonky: Hothouse Earth. No matter — it's still a typically great National Geographic story. Just how much carbon was injected into the atmosphere during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, as scientists now call the fever period, is uncertain. But they estimate it was roughly the amount that wouldContinue reading “We are the new PETM: National Geographic”
Tree of Life: Does God love us in an abusive way?
I provoke, but really, that is the question that burns beneath the beautiful surfaces of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. I say this as an agnostic, as one who dislikes theology and theologians, but as one who (like many other critics) finds that this movie "touches me so much I can barely stand it." The storyContinue reading “Tree of Life: Does God love us in an abusive way?”
How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens
Anyway they can: My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementaryContinue reading “How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens”
Revkin unbound: Another successful satellite launch
Andrew Revkin, the leading climate reporter of our time, turns out not to have just a phenomenal (and huge) blog, the justly famous Dot Earth on the New York Times, but also a more informal and visual tumblr, Revkin.net, with which yours truly has fallen instantly in love. From that tumblr, here's a terrific picContinue reading “Revkin unbound: Another successful satellite launch”
Out walking with my father: Of course I remember
A new poem from Adam Zagajewski is always an occasion, and this one, blessedly, Threepenny Review put up for all to see: Out Walking with My FatherGrunwald Square, Gliwice My father remembers next to nothing. With slight exceptions.Do you remember fixing transmitters for the Home Army?Of course I remember. Were you afraid?I don’t remember. WasContinue reading “Out walking with my father: Of course I remember”
Romney flip-flops on climate: Will Limbaugh approve?
Yesterday Mitt Romney changed his views on climate change. In a talk in Pittsburg, he declared: My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us. In June in NewContinue reading “Romney flip-flops on climate: Will Limbaugh approve?”
Tennessee Williams tells a story about Truman Capote
From Dotson Rader's great, great Tennessee: Cry of the Heart, 1985 Rader writes: Tennessee went on to talk about the one time Truman came to Key West. "It was two years ago. he had flown to Key West from Mexico, where he was to stay with Mrs. [Lee] Radiwill but left in a hurry becauseContinue reading “Tennessee Williams tells a story about Truman Capote”
Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details
Eugene Robinson wraps up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project results in an op-ed for the Washington Post: [Richard] Muller found that skeptics are wrong when they claim that a “heat island” effect from urbanization is skewing average temperature readings; monitoring instruments in rural areas show rapid warming, too. He found that skeptics are wrongContinue reading “Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details”
Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life
From an unpretentious and persuasive visual essay on the most debated movie of the year, The Tree of Life, by Matt Zoller Seitz: There is this central notion in all of Malick’s films that every individual person is just one tiny part of nature. Not too much more important in the larger scheme of thingsContinue reading “Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life”
Kit Stolz 