Embedded Files
This page is a grab bag for some of my other passions besides politics. As such, I'm not going to give any resources here. Instead, I'll update this page with a post or a link if I find something particularly enjoyable or noteworthy.
Books
How the Light Gets In - May 7, 2014
How the Light Gets In is Louise Penny's ninth novel featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sȗreté de Québec. Gamache is the head of the homicide department and the stories take place in the rural countryside of eastern Quebec province....
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Sunday Roundup Apr. 20 2014
Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, the greatest Latin American writer of the 20th century, passed away Thursday at the age of 87. His "magical realism" works are his best known. In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature...
Two Spy Novels: Sweet Tooth and A Delicate Truth - Jul. 4, 2013
Well, not really. One, A Delicate Truth by John le Carré, is indeed a spy novel set in the post 9/11 era. The other, Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, is more a love story of 1970's England with the MI-5, Britain's domestic secret service, as the backdrop....
Other books discussed on the blog:
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judd - see Political Science & Economics page
On God's Side by Jim Wallis [2 parts]
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
When the Blue Shift Comes by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
Why Does the World Exist? by Jim Holt
Music
What Would John Lennon Think? - Dec. 10, 2010
John Lennon was killed 30 years ago on December 8 and the world has been the worse for it ever since....Besides being one of the most popular rock song writers ever, John Lennon was an icon to the love & peace generation.
Change and the Future of Rock 'n' Roll - July 26, 2012
"I've seen the future of Rock'n'Roll and it's name is Bruce Springsteen." Thirty eight years ago, in May 1974, rock writer Jon Landau wrote these prophetic and now famous words....Rock has been a dominant genre in pop music since the mid-50's. It has evolved over the years but the best has had an edginess, an optimism and a power to it....It's been there all my life and I've been there for all of its..So the question for the moment is: if Springsteen was the future of rock'n'roll in 1974, who is the future of rock in 2012?
In Search of Beethoven - April 13, 2013
Written and directed by Phil Grabsky, In Search of Beethoven (2009) is beautifully photographed - at times almost impressionistic - informative, and well written, drawing on expert commentary from contemporary musicians and composers as well as on Beethoven's letters.
Musical Interlude - Aug. 29, 2013
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. - Bob Marley Congress gets back to "work" in a week or so. Expect to see a full court misinformation campaign to bring down Obamacare. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration seems determined to hit Syria with cruise missiles...As the forces of ignorance gather, I've pulled together a few good YouTube video links to keep our spirits up....
Folk singer and activist Pete Seeger passed away on January 27 at the age 94. Infamously blacklisted after his appearance before the McCarthy-era "House Un-American Activities Committee", he was a tireless advocate for workers, civil rights, the environment and peace....
Last Monday marked the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. Hard to believe it's been 34 years...We could use some political leaders today that have his insight, consciousness and compassion...
A Christmas Wish: Musical Interlude Dec. 24, 2014
Happy Christmas! In the spirit of this season of joy and peace, here are links to some YouTube videos for your enjoyment.
Musings/Religion/Philosophy
May - May 15, 2011
If, as T.S. Eliot wrote, April is the "cruelest month", then May is the kindest.
The Religious Left - June 15, 2011
...Jim Wallis,an evangelical theologian is the founder of Sojourners, a nationwide network of progressive Christians working for justice and peace. His 2005 NY Times bestseller, God's Politics, describes how the right wing distorted and co-opted religion and “values”. As the book's chapter subtitles ask: since when did Jesus become pro-war, pro-rich, and a selective moralist?...
Why Does the World Exist? - Sep. 29, 2012
Jim Holt's recently published Why Does the World Exist? attempts to answer (or at least ponder) what William James called the “darkest question in all philosophy” - to wit, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Holt explores philosophical, theological, and scientific attempts to answer the question...
Genius - Mar. 10, 2013
Culture and Multi-Topic
The Turning of the Centuries - Aug. 3, 2012
“On or about December 1910, human character changed..."- Virginia Woolf
The twenty or so years preceding 1910 were marked by revolutionary changes in how humans viewed the world. The ground-breaking nature of these ideas and inventions of the early 20th century dwarf anything comparable in the 21st.
Ten Good Things - Apr. 5, 2013
Politics have been absent from this blog for about a month now. I really didn't want to talk about the lack of progress on so many fronts. I still don't. Instead, this post will lay out 10 good things that have happened in the past couple of months or so....
Ten Good Things - Aug. 12, 2013
Before the do-nothing, filibuster-mongering 113th Congress returns from its recess and before the democracy-challenged Supreme Court gets back in session, I thought it would be timely to present another list of Ten Good Things that happened in the past few months....
Best News of the Year - Dec.11, 2013
In roughly chronological order, here are some of the best of this year's stories....
Art
Cezanne's Pig - Aug. 15, 2012
One of the many pleasures of our vacation in the South of France was the opportunity to visit the sites where artists created their paintings, to view and experience the landscapes and light that inspired them and informed their work....Aix is the city of Cézanne. He lived and painted here - his studio (Atelier Cézanne) as well as his family estate (the Jas de Bouffan) are both in Aix. We visited these as well as a café that Cézanne frequented with writer Emile Zola and the building that housed his father's hat store...
Night Fishing at Antibes - Sep. 6, 2012
Musée Picasso is located at the Chateau Grimaldi in Antibes overlooking the Mediterranean. The museum has some spectacular views of the sea from its outdoor sculpture garden, which contains works by Picasso and others. Picasso had stayed at the chateau for a couple of very productive months in 1946 and had visited and stayed in Antibes on other occasions. My favorite work in this modest-sized collection is a remarkable tapestry of the painting "Night Fishing at Antibes"...
A Vacation in Italy - Aug 12, 2014
...During the Renaissance, paintings went from two-dimensional to three-dimensional representations of the world. Linear perspective was developed. Color became more vibrant....Sculpture turned to Greek and Roman models of the idealized human body and statues of amazing fluidity were created by the hands of master sculptors. New architectural techniques were brought to bear on the building of great churches and cathedrals....
Guernica (New Left Bank Cafe post) - March 20, 2017
One of the "must-see's" for my trip to Spain was Picasso's Guernica. This mural-sized painting is perhaps the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in Western art. It was returned to Spain from the Museum of Modern Art in New York some years after the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco...
Sports
Baseball Cards - Jan. 9, 2013
Two of the more interesting stories of recent days were about baseball cards. A man found an 1865 baseball card in a photo album that he bought at a yard sale...
World Cup 2014 - July 15, 2013
The FIFA World Cup tournament is the most watched sporting event, well, in the world. About 2.2 billion people watched at least 20 consecutive minutes of one or more matches in the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa....The 2014 World Cup is now just one year away. Brazil will be the host country for World Cup XX and the 64 matches will be played from June 13 until the championship game on July 13. Qualifying matches are about 60% complete...
World Cup Update - Oct. 16, 2013
he first rounds in all regions are now complete and twenty one sides have qualified. The remaining eleven slots will be filled in a series of home-and-home playoffs...
Football- American Style - Jan 7, 2014
It's been a hectic and exciting couple of weeks with all the college football bowl games and NFL playoff games playing on TV. The college BCS Championship was decided Monday night in what's been called a "game for the ages" and the hype is now building towards Super Bowl XLVIII...
Football- International Style - Jan. 10, 2014
Back in 2004, Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World examined the soccer culture in various countries and the soccer culture's relationship to the era of globalization. Soccer has been a globalized sport for decades
The World Cup - Sunday Roundup Apr. 13, 2014
Roads and Kingdoms continues its excellent "The Far Post" series on the global soccer culture in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup. One of the most interesting and thought-provoking in the series is philosopher Simon Critchley's March 11 piece, "Working Class Ballet", on the "spectacle, poetry and importance of professional football."
We've all heard Edison's “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” definition of genius. Granted perseverance to follow an idea through to a successful conclusion is an essential element of discovery. But I suspect there is more to it than that. Imagination and creativity, intelligence and talent, knowledge and openness to new ideas an understanding of current needs and a foresight of future possibilities – these surely have a role....
Cicadas, Memories, and the Art of Forgetting - Jun 11, 2013
Prompted by what appeared to be a cicada that had been crushed underfoot by an (I hope) unawares jogger in a nearby park, I began thinking about those 17-year cicadas the other day. The seventeen years between their emergences are about half of a human generation. Seventeen years also seems to be about the length of time at which details of events, the ambiance of the political climate, and all but the deeper personal memories begin, in many instances, to blur or be forgotten....
On God's Side by Jim Wallis is discussed in the posts of Sep. 17 and Sep. 24, 2013
In the first section of his book, "Inspiring the Common Good", Wallis provides the heart of his biblical and theological argument for a "gospel of the common good." He writes of the Beatitudes...and the Sermon on the Mount as the place to begin to understand what is meant by Jesus' preaching of the Kingdom of God....In the second part of On God's Side, Jim Wallis discusses "practices for the common good." What actions and behaviors will help our nation achieve the common good so necessary for a democracy and so essential to the Christian view of the world?...
The World Cup tournament kicks off in Brazil on Thursday June 12...The pre-tournament favorite, currently at 3 to 1, is Brazil. Italy is 28 to 1. USA is 225 to 1. Oh well....The May 21 Sydney Morning Herald carried a story on Pele's thoughts on the preparations for the games: Brazil legend Pele was critical of his country's preparations...The April 29 article in The Far Post series from Roads & Kingdoms relates the slow development of women's soccer in Brazil. The article leads with the story of Marta Vieira da Silva (aka "Pele in skirts")....
After all the talk about Neymar and Brazil and about Messi and Argentina, it was methodical, "boring" Germany that came away with the 2014 World Cup. I watched, stunned with most of the world, as Germany dismantled Brazil in the semi-final with five goals over a span of 18 minutes in the first half. Germany went on to beat Argentina in overtime in the final and earned a #1 rating along with the World Cup....
Sunday Roundup Sep 28, 2014 (Derek Jeter)
Had one presented Hollywood with the story of Derek Jeter's final game at Yankee Stadium, the script would have been rejected. Too implausible for today's movie audiences...no one would believe it. The all-time baseball great said goodbye to his hometown fans with a flourish that those present will remember for the rest of their lives....
The World Series, Halloween and the Election - Oct. 30. 2014
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