I’m in the middle of reading This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, a delightful work by Daniel J. Levitin. I plan to write about this book when I’m finished reading it, but one thing he wrote in his introduction especially intrigued me. Levitin writes…
I didn't know much about Dan Burton until I read today's story with this headline: "House Bans Lobbyist Gifts, Business-Sponsored Travel." Now I know that he's morally obtuse. Here's the gist of the article: The U.S. House of Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership, voted to ban lawmakers from flying…
This question is misleading. In 2003, approximately 40% of us opposed the invasion. But it felt like there were only a handful of us.
I was looking through my 2003 writings to recall my rational for opposing the Iraq invasion. I don’t see that I wrote anything much about Iraq back then. I do remember thinking the invasion was a big mistake. I do remember thinking that Colin Powell was blowing smoke at the U.N.
Though I didn’t find much in writing from 2003, I found this 2004 email I wrote to a friend who was very much in favor of the war:
…I’ve been working a lot of hours lately, but I can’t help but feel deep gnawing need to pry myself away periodically to do my small part to stop this insane movement that goes in the name of “conservatism.” Squandering the budget is only one part of it for me. Every day, this lunatic’s rhetoric and actions are causing 100 talented young men from the Middle East to dedicate their entire lives to lighting a nuclear fire so as to melt New York. I truly believe that the short term temporary good that Bush has accomplished in the Middle East is far outweighed, not only by the blood spilled to accomplish it, but by the horrors we will be facing 10 and 20 years from now. This country would never have gone to war had Bush and his team not bald-faced lied about the alleged urgent need
According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the U.S. National Park Service won't admit the well-established age of the Grand Canyon. Why? Because our National Park Service doesn't want to offend young earth creationists. Here's the well-established geological story: The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin (of which…
This age. Bizarre. Part of the bizarreness rests in how much we actually know about it. We swim in a deepening sea of information. How to cope? We compartmentalize. So, though, do those providing us the information, and therein lies another problem, which is a question of integration. Recently at…