thinking out loud – Page 44

Hard Times and a Little Coffee

Here's an image from a brilliant young, um, graphic artist. (Cartoonist isn't quite the right word.) Lotta truth there, I can attest. But as Patti Smith, mulling over the suicide of a hedge fund manager points out, hard times may mean fear, but don't have to mean despair. How wonderful it is to be alive.Continue reading “Hard Times and a Little Coffee”

Time and the Sea

From Rachel Carson’s notebooks, collected in Lost Woods: Saw tracks of a shore bird — probably a sanderling, and followed them a little, then they turned toward the water and were soon obliterated by the sea. How much it washes away, and makes as though it had never been. Time itself is like the sea,Continue reading “Time and the Sea”

“I Used to Have a Really Cool Job”

An interesting thing about the on-coming economic crash is that this is old news for lots of people, some of them impressively articulate, in both the music biz and the music criticism biz. Last year a wonderful magazine about what is now known as Americana music called No Depression gave up its print run. They'veContinue reading ““I Used to Have a Really Cool Job””

I’m Underemployed, but I’m Not Alone

This is strangely comforting. The unemployed love company, I guess.

Hansen Faces Hatred and Death Threats

I interviewed author Mark Bowen a year ago about James Hansen, the great climatologist, with whom Bowen wrote the book Censoring Science. Somehow the discussion went to the intensity of reaction against Hansen from those who refuse to accept the reality of global warming. Bowen mentioned that Hansen had gotten some death threats. He saidContinue reading “Hansen Faces Hatred and Death Threats”

Financial Meltdown of 2008: A Crisis or a Correction?

In an article in The Progressive, Ruth Coniff blames consumerism for the financial meltdown: A front-page story in The New York Times, "To Buy Children's Gifts, Mothers Do Without," describes a trend away from shopping responsible for an 18.2 percent drop in women's clothing sales from a year ago. People are curbing the Christmas binge,Continue reading “Financial Meltdown of 2008: A Crisis or a Correction?”

What Lifts Us Out of Ourselves Helps Us Believe in the Future

Have been reading through a collection of short pieces by the great Rachel Carson, called Lost Woods: The Discovered Writings of Rachel Carson. Turns out Carson wrote the liner notes for a recording of Claude Debussy's La Mer, and subsequently was asked to give a talk on the connection between the arts and the naturalContinue reading “What Lifts Us Out of Ourselves Helps Us Believe in the Future”

The End of Something Old, the Start of Something New

David Brooks, I owe you an apology. After your fervent support for the misguided and mismanaged war in Iraq, I thought you had become a neocon. Your seemingly mindless support of the re-election of Bush in 2004 was the final straw for me. But perhaps I spoke too soon. Since 2005, Brooks has been expressingContinue reading “The End of Something Old, the Start of Something New”

Could Bandwagon Effect Be Driving Obama’s Rise in the Polls?

Anyone with the slightest interest in the subject of polls this year has heard about The Bradley Effect, in which polls supposedly under-represented racist voters, so that black candidates were likely to fare more poorly than the polls indicated. My favorite statistical analyst, Nate Silver, argues cogently (here) that this effect did exist in particularContinue reading “Could Bandwagon Effect Be Driving Obama’s Rise in the Polls?”

Conservatism Loses Its Head

From an intriguing Los Angeles Times op-ed this Monday: In the early 1960s, writers at William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review knew that conservatism, like all political movements, needs a head as well as a heart. In a confidential memo, Frank Meyer, the National Review's leading theorist, made distinctions between the "establishment of responsible leadership"Continue reading “Conservatism Loses Its Head”