Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer: The BP Screw-Up We Almost Didn’t Hear About If the most-hated corporation in America releases a massive quantity of toxic chemicals and nobody hears about it does it matter? Nicholas Riccardi at the Los Angeles Times: Fleeing Phoenix out of fear of immigration law “The business is broken,” said …
Category Archives: Everything
Hey, I Could Have Used That!
There have been a number of high profile stories in the news lately about what happens to unsold items at stores, especially chain stores. Like reports on clothing chains which slash clothing and dump it in bags on street corners, bookstores which strip covers and dumpster unsold books, and so forth. Anyone who has ever …
Deforestation
It’s a mind-boggling number, but the World Resources Institute claims that 80% of the Earth’s natural forests have been destroyed. Almost three quarters of the plant and animal life on Earth is found in forests, some of which are extremely fragile ecosystems. Not only that, but some are truly unique; there are patches of forest …
Female Celebrities Behaving Oddly? It Must Be Mental Illness!
My pal Ouyang Dan from FWD/Forward has written two great posts recently talking about the way the public devours celebrity, and specifically about the way in which the public frames female celebrity. “The Public Consumption of Britney” is up over at Bitch Magazine, and “On Speculation and Boundaries…” was published at FWD after the unexpected …
The Vacuum Update
It’s been about two months since I acquired my new vacuum, so I thought I’d have a check in. The short version of the story is that, yes, I am still happy with my new vacuum! Hooray. Talking with my father about this the other day, I mentioned how one really doesn’t know if a …
Scams to Listen Out For
With an economic downturn, of course, comes an uptick in creative ways to survive. As always, some of these creative ways include scamming, and I’ve noticed a definite increase in reporting on scams among the various sites I read. What’s amazing is that the mechanics of scamming honestly hasn’t changed all that much, and one …
Grapes
It is dusk when we arrive in the town. A single cobblestone street wanders crookedly, with dirt offshoots leading here and there, tilted houses built sometime in the last ten centuries but definitely not less than 300 years ago. The air is warm, with a hint of something crisp, and a handful of people are …
Battlestar Galactica: Crusades in Space
Please assume that this post contains spoilers for all seasons of Battlestar Galactica and also for Caprica. One of the themes in Battlestar Galactica which I was really struggling with, as a viewer, was the God stuff. Because, boy howdy, there was a lot of God stuff. There was the faith followed by the majority …
The Kids Just Keep Getting Older and Older
So, I recently watched the premiere of Caprica, which I realize has been out and about for a while, but what can I say, sometimes it takes me a while to get with the program. I will say that I liked it, and I am interested to see where the show takes me. It is …
On the Cats
I used to write about the cats a fair amount, and then I realized that it was probably kind of boring to hear about them all the time, so I haven’t written about them much lately. But, I have a fair number of new readers, so I feel justified in writing a fluff post about …