With today's death of Christopher Hitchens, the world has lost a magnificent -- and irritating, and disagreeable, and stimulating -- giant. To see him at his inimitable best requires only to select more or less at random any of the

Any decent Marxist will tell you that ideas spring from the material conditions of society, and while I am neither especially decent nor consistently Marxist, I can say that material conditions account for the sparse posting to this precious, precious blog. Suffice to say that back in the sun-fondled, bluebird-circled sprin

The future of Sonic Youth is in doubt, I gather, because members Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon have ended their decades-long marriage, and history sho

A little light reading to apply as you will:In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting. I've thought

I just completed the

I am the scarcely over 0% typing this list:

Two things I cherish are happening in the same time right now -- the Occupy Wall Street movement against the excesses of corporate power, greed, dishonesty, and corruption, and the Portland Marathon.

John Gray claims faith, properly understood, doesn't have much to do with belief, concluding as follows: We'd all be better off if we stopped believing in belief. Not everyone needs a religion. But if you do, you shouldn't be bothered about finding

I think I know what Jesse would do -- th

During an unpleasant few moments of an otherwise pleasant visit to Powell's Books, I suffered through almost the whole of the text printed on the jacket of Thomas Friedman's latest book about America's decline

In keeping with my tendency to value comity, harmony, and consensus, I post four images from the Overrated White Guys tumblr -- posted in the presumably sensible order in which this web interface placed them when I selected all and clicked the button. It

It seems I've entered that delicate stage of feckless dotage in which I get misty-eyed over bands that are no more. No, they're not dead as with, say, Fleetwood Mac, but REM is no longer: "To our fans and friends: As REM, a

My continuing coverage of Netflix continues, breathlessly as ever, with the news that its forward-thinking CEO ... is now going to separate Netflix's DVD and streaming businesses into two different brands. The online half will be called Netflix, wh

I just signed the Whole Constitution Pledge, which almost completely avoids the fetish for "founding fathers" that these kinds of things tend to indulge:Through the Constitution, “We the People” created the most enduring government charter in world h

I say the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is far too kind in this statement: The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made in the Republican presidential campaign that HPV vaccine is dangerous and can cause

Yesterday was Neko Case's birthday, and this is "Twist the Knife," a song I am appalled to note I have yet to post on this precious, precious blog:   "Twist the Knife" is among her most country-sounding songs, and also among the most representative of her vocal gifts. It is, in short,

I should just go ahead and s

Sigh. I am, despite all my wishes, back from a restful vacation on the Oregon Coast. Every photograph you see below was taken within a 25-mile stretch along the Oregon Coast during that single glorious week, and give but a paltry sense of what it was to behold.Well, all but one were taken within that week and in

Sigh. I am, despite all my wishes, back from a restful vacation on the Oregon Coast. Every photograph you see below was taken within a 25-mile stretch along the Oregon Coast during that single glorious week, and give but a paltry sense of what it was to behold.Well, all but one were taken within that week and in

For purposes of this blog post, which contains many