Sad. I wanted to see the Grand Canyon again before I die….

…but I’m not willing to die to see it, either. Arizona legalizes the carrying of concealed weapons into bars. Oh joy.  Nothing like a little bourbon or beer to promote good decision making around tools of deadly force. New Mexico — hell just about anywhere else — looks better and better. Image:  David Lüders (c. [...]

Ridiculously delightful fact of no consequence: Tango, Wales, London, Argentina edition

Wikipedia is swamp of delights. A swamp, for one may enter therein to dally, and get sucked into its twists and byways with no hope of escape. Delights?  Well consider this. From the Wikimedia main page an incautious trackpad click allowed me to satisfy my curiousity to see what Wiki life might look like in [...]

Andrew Sullivan Fouls One Off — and Then Grotesquely Strikes Out: God, Evil, and Auschwitz edition, part one

Once again, my long promised magnum opus — a shotgun fired at a flea, actually, yet another salvo in the eternal war against stupid at The Atlantic — is delayed to deal with more pressing matters. This time it’s Andrew Sullivan, and he’s not being stupid — for unlike some of his stable mates he’s [...]

Getting Ready To Atone — So Here’s a Completely Snark/Aggro Free Amazing Vid. to Enjoy

Got to the film maker via Sully’s paean to a Burning Man video. But this one is better: Also Sprach…, Brazil, and coral. What more could you desire? Truly, time lapse artist/film maker Ben Wiggins has done an amazing job — enjoy: more about “Getting Ready To Atone — So Here’s a…“, posted with vodpod

Friday Mental Health: Must watch sandpainting video

So — what work of art have you created today? Watch World War II unfold in eight minutes, in sand, hands, light and music: (h/t NPR, via my beloved’s attention this evening)

Self Aggrandizement Alert: More cool Newton and the Counterfeiter talk: Chris Lydon/RadioOpenSource edition

Old friend and former WGBH-mate Chris Lydon, now the creative intelligence behind one of the web’s really exciting attempts to create global conversation,  Open Source, came by a couple of weeks ago to record an interview with me about that book I might have mentioned around here once or twice — Newton and the Counterfeiter.  [...]

UPDATE: [Simulated] Cruelty to Animals as a Wingnut Theme: Truly unbelievable, and hideously funny (except for the frog) Glenn Beck monent

Update 3  (At the top, because that’s where corrections should go): This was, as I should have known, not frogicide, but performance art.  I’ve deleted the misleadingly edited clip below.  The full clip shows what the abbreviated one below does not:  that Beck tells you that the frog in the pot was a fake.  (See [...]

We Will Fight Them On The Beaches!: Why Does The Atlantic Hate Science so Damn Much Edition.

I know that I’ve been on blog hiatus for a while, and as my minions* have the troubling property of non-existence, I can’t opt for the Sully option of serving up a welter of outsourced stuff to hold down the space. But I’m trying to dig out from under the delights of start-of-term and all [...]

Morning Link: Start-the-week with beauty/Gorgeous Photography edition

Both sturm und drang promised for this space this week — but before we get to the ritual gnashing of teeth over the mendacious folly of the plague of politico-scientific culture warriors infesting the intertubes these day, a moment of sheer, breathtaking, astonishing beauty-and-terror to be found in these photographs. Look at them all; virtuouso [...]

Happy Friday Morning Moment

Entirely personal, and of no real interest to anyone, but my son just gave me a writing-father’s moment of joy.  His fourth grade homework was to enumerate ten rights that everyone in his classroom should enjoy. I helped, but for the last one I made an extra effort to hang back.  He despaired, just a [...]