I’m not going to start this blog with an apology about how rarely I blog. If I were hitting you everyday and apologizing each time, it would not change the fact that I hit you every day, would it? No. So let us just not speak of it at all.

I am one of those people who spends some time reflecting on New Year’s Eve. I don’t want to be. I have tried not to be. No getting around it, I just am. I’m not severe about it. I mean, I’m not kicking myself all night for not being who I thought I would be when I daydreamed in middle school. Much. Mostly, I take a quick inventory and try to motivate myself to go in one direction or another.

The first time I remember really putting any thought into it I was six months past college graduation and waiting tables at Cha Cha Coconuts. [Read more →]

Tags: getting older, square one by Van McCourt by Van McCourt
2 Comments »

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
No Comments »

The year 2011 was an alarming one for dictators, as a series of mass uprisings toppled several authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The so-called “Arab Spring” inspired wild hopes, with some optimists even declaring that the 20th century phenomenon of the dictator was finished, and a new era of democracy was dawning- just like in Eastern Europe in 1989. True? False? Let’s survey the Year in Dictators and find out! [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
No Comments »

Here, in Texas, we have an annual influx of ‘snowbirds’ … large masses of gente norteña fleeing the winter weather ‘up north’ to enjoy a season of clear skies and milder temperatures ‘down south.’ It’s a long and time-honored tradition … for many years, my great-grand-aunt and uncle made their own annual migration from Leisuretown, New Jersey down to the sun and surf of Florida. And it’s also a tremendous economic boon to parts of Texas that enjoy an annual influx of cash in return for all things leisure – goods, services, opportunities, you name it.

Not all snowbirds travel to Texas by R.V. … and it is THEY who provide US an opportunity, a chance to observe something not-often-seen in these parts of the U.S. Here’s a shot I took of two extraordinary snowbirds in Llano County, Texas, this past week. Regular visitors in the process of raising a brood of future snowbirds.

Tags: animals, environment & nature by Jeff McDonald
No Comments »

I was really looking forward to reading this book! From the minute it arrived, it sat on the shelf, in the To Be Read pile, and whispered to me every time I walked by. You could tell by the cover that it was going to be racy. There was also the subtitle, “A Novel of Sex & Violence”, to give you a clue. And the publisher — Hard Case Crime. Doesn’t that just sound like it’s going to be a great book? And Lawrence Block’s Getting Off did not disappoint.

This is a novel about a female serial killer, but a woman so interesting that sometimes you forget just what she is. She picks up men in bars, takes them home and has sex with them, then she drugs them and kills them. She takes their money, their credit cards, whatever she needs to pay her bills. When she gets bored, she moves on — new city, new neighborhood, new name. She’s been doing some version of that since she left home (and believe me, her leaving home was a story in itself). [Read more →]

Tags: books & writing, Lisa Reads by Lisa Hura
1 Comment »

Aldous Huxley’s nightmare has finally taken the shape of things to come.

As the New Year dawns, the future are us.

I don’t blame my generation entirely for the horror of it all. This on-going collapse of civilization was actually begun by our grandparents during the 1910′s with Woodrow Wilson, the Princeton smarty who set in motion the Federal Income Tax (the state expropriation of private property), The Federal Reserve (State control over the money supply), The Clayton Anti-trust Act (State control over business), and the Farm Loan Act (State Control over agriculture), and then entered us in the First World War after promising not to. This was the same generation that passed Prohibition as a Constitutional Amendment, and then repealed it when their good intentions went awry, thus making that founding document no more serious than a city ordinance. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government by Vincent McCaffrey
No Comments »

My last column served up a modest proposal regarding the philosophy curriculum, suggesting that larval philosophers supplement logic with the experience of making meatloaf.

I’d like to continue in that vein with a further suggestion: That they try to arrange, from time to time, to fill in for the janitor.

I am not being frivolous. [Read more →]

Tags: religion & philosophy, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
4 Comments »

Bill Conlin, a legendary sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News, was accused of sexual abuse this week by a number of people, all claiming to have been abused back in the seventies. Four people, including one of Conlin’s nieces, accused the writer early in the week, and several others have come forward since, all claiming that he touched them when they were children. Unlike many other situations like this, these kids or witnesses to the events actually told their parents what happened. Across the board, those parents chose to try to handle the situation themselves rather than go to the police. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
1 Comment »

10. So You Think You Can Wassail

9. I Saw Uncle Charlie Kissing Santa Claus

8. The Littlest Angel: You’re Gonna Do What With That Christmas Tree?!
[Read more →]

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, television by Bob Sullivan
No Comments »

Tags: politics & government by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
No Comments »