All last night there was never any doubt that this day was going to drag me into the harsh light and try to kick some words out of me, but I once again tried to convince myself that I was somehow made of sterner stuff than the average fellow. I wasn’t about to cough up … Read more
Well, if you didn’t already believe the people who run the National Rifle Association are crazier than a hummingbird on crack, read this from NRA first vice president, Sandra S. Froman. It seems that if only the teachers at Red Lake had been totin’ heat themselves, they could have protected their students from Jeff Weise’s … Read more
A couple of interesting meditations on the newspaper industry today. Generally, we just feel like we want to disagree on principal with such grandiose pronouncements as Michael Malone makes today over at ABC news, namely that “newspapers are dead.” All you need to do to refute such a silly claim is to look over the … Read more
In Cuba, when they have tornadoes, they kill them. When they see one coming, they start shooting it with their rifles and shotguns, and the explosions make the tornadoes disappear. When I tell people in America that they shoot tornadoes in Cuba, they don’t believe me. But I believe because I’ve seen it happen; I’ve … Read more
The knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge. —Spinoza, Ethics But the most important thing is that one can no longer be sure nowadays who is and who is not in a state of temporary insanity. —Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov The Shatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; Watch the road. —The Book … Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot about Terri Schiavo, which, I think, puts me in some pretty good company–that of people who believe life is sacred and we shouldn’t allow it to end without good reason. Like the abortion and death penalty debates, poor Terri has become a nexus of American confusion among our nation of … Read more
We had a laugh a few months ago, when there was that little dust-up between the gay fellows over at Powerline and the Star Tribune’s Nick Coleman. They’d all been in a running firefight—liberal this, neo-con that—and while we’ve come to appreciate the deceptively euphonious rhetoric of the full-time bloggers and Rather-slayers, they were far … Read more
Neal Viemeister, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, can’t pinpoint exactly what prompted him to hire the Greek undergrad as a research assistant back in the 1970s. He searched his memory—“Well, John knocked at my door looking for research experience, which impressed me, that an undergraduate would be that motivated and courageous. He … Read more
It’s doubtful that people will camp out in order to be the first inside the newly expanded Walker Art Center, but who knows? They did at Ikea in Bloomington last year; surely some flapdoodle ought to accompany the unveiling of a shimmering contemporary art center designed by avant-garde Swiss architects. However, to members of the … Read more
At a recent screening of The Assassination of Richard Nixon, the director, Niels Mueller, showed up for a question and answer session. It quickly became apparent that his questioners didn’t care so much about the film’s story as what it was like to work with Sean Penn and how Mueller got his movie made. How … Read more