Category Archives: thinking out loud

John Cassidy: Start the blame game — it’s over for Mitt

From veteran writer/editor John Cassidy, blogging for The New Yorker: When Romney decided to run in 2012, the best argument for his candidacy was that he had nothing to do with the Bush Administration and could appeal to moderate voters. But rather than trying to make a break with the Bush Administration and portraying himselfContinue reading “John Cassidy: Start the blame game — it’s over for Mitt”

California (and the world) in 3012, with massive warming

Almost a decade ago, Chris Wayan took the George W. Bush idea of how things should go on the planet — a Business as Usual scenario, but without nuclear disasters — and projected it, with sea level rise, on to maps of the world. He calls the result Dubia: Suppose we avoid war, plague, andContinue reading “California (and the world) in 3012, with massive warming”

Different views, different news: Two polarizations

Four years ago the national consensus was that the economy had gone to hell, with handbasket potential for further destruction and damage.  In the politer words of Pew Research: "Amid the nation’s financial crisis four years ago, there were virtually no differences in how Republicans, Democrats and independents viewed economic news. About eight-in-ten in eachContinue reading “Different views, different news: Two polarizations”

The conventions and global warming: Let’s forget

Jonathan Chait points out some perfectly obvious but little noticed national jujitsu that Bill Clinton threw us for last night:  In an otherwise factual and persuasive speech, Bill Clinton made one argument so astonishingly brass I half-expected the crowd to laugh him out of the hall. It came when Clinton cited his own presidency asContinue reading “The conventions and global warming: Let’s forget”

Indian summer snowfall in the Sierra: John Muir

John Muir wrote poetry almost unconsciously. Or so it seems. For him metaphors — such as the idea of a land of clouds — were embedded in his thinking from his early days, and evolved easily into poems (though they're easier to see with a few line breaks). Here's an entry in his journal fromContinue reading “Indian summer snowfall in the Sierra: John Muir”

Average August 2012 temperature in Phoenix: 100.2

As of today. That includes night: hasn't once fallen below 90 in weeks.   Map from a resident who — looking for a cool spot — cleverly overlaid a heat image of the city on a Google Earth map. After charting the cooler green locales (see link) Mark concluded he should live in the Phoenix Country Club. 

Will 21st century be the end for professional writers?

According to a fed-up journalist Ewan Morrison, writing in the Toronto's respected Globe and Mail newspaper, even well-established authors such as himself are working essentially for nothing now. The economic trajectory of writing today is “a classic race to the bottom,” according to Morrison, who has become a leading voice of the growing counter-revolution –Continue reading “Will 21st century be the end for professional writers?”

These are not your grandfather’s thunderstorms: Masters

For over a decade climatologists have been saying, and I have been reporting, that we will be seeing more extremes in weather. This goes unnoticed in the here and now of daily reporting, but it's true.  Here's a map of yesterday's thunderstorms over Gotham and the East: Jeff Masters commented this morning: The severe stormsContinue reading “These are not your grandfather’s thunderstorms: Masters”

Sleeping outdoors: John Fowles and Mary Oliver

From John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman: For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse. But it was a woman asleep. She had chosen the strangest position, a broad, sloping fedge of grass some five feet beneath the level of the plateau, and which hid her from the vew of anyContinue reading “Sleeping outdoors: John Fowles and Mary Oliver”