Category Archives: Uncategorized

An antidote to Presidential fawning

Posted on June 16, 2004 by ken

He may be a strung-out gun nut, but Hunter Thompson’s obituary of Richard M. Nixon is worth reading to counter the effects of the Reagan coverage. It’s a little like eating some hearty green vegetables after eating McDonald’s all week. … Continue reading →

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Power Problems in Brooklyn

Posted on June 16, 2004 by ken

For the second time in a week, we’ve had much lower than normal voltage in my building. Con Ed denies anything is wrong, but they said the same thing last Wednesday, and the whole neighborhood had problems and there were … Continue reading →

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NY Times redefines “offshore”

Posted on June 16, 2004 by ken

In a scare story in today’s New York Times, we’re told that even high-end software jobs are vulnerable to “migrating abroad”: In the debate over high-technology work migrating abroad, there has been widespread agreement on at least one thing: the … Continue reading →

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Tortuous coverage

Posted on June 11, 2004 by ken

Today’s lead headline in The New York Times: Bush Doesn’t Expect NATO to Provide Troops for Iraq. Today’s lead headline in The Financial Times: Bush sidesteps questions over prisoners’ torture. Tell me again how the Times has an anti-Bush agenda? … Continue reading →

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No philosophers in the U.S.?

Posted on June 11, 2004 by ken

J.K. Rowling has a rather charming web site that she actually seems to be writing herself (one sign that marketing doesn’t control the site is a rare flash of rational web design: a very usable text version of the site). … Continue reading →

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Ray Charles, September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004

Posted on June 10, 2004 by ken

I saw Ray Charles only once, from the back row of Brooklyn College’s Gershwin Auditorium. Far from the expected rote review of hits in a (let’s face it) second-level venue, he kicked ass, kicked the piano, and nearly fell off … Continue reading →

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A few dissenting words at last…

Posted on June 8, 2004 by ken

It’s about time a few people in the media broke away from the chorus of unthinking praise being heaped on Ronald Reagan. (Anyone with any remaining illusions about the “liberal media” must have missed the NPR segment on Saturday that … Continue reading →

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Speaking of usage errors!

Posted on May 21, 2004 by ken

Here’s one I just committed myself: maelstorm. There’s no such word. It’s maelstrom, the name of a whirlpool in Norway, also known as Moskenstraumen, and as the reference points out, brought to us primarily by Jules Verne and Edgar Allen … Continue reading →

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Other encouraging news…

Posted on May 21, 2004 by ken

Fox News leads CNN in ratings, but is having trouble charging as much for ads as its rival, according to yesterday’s WSJ. This partially has to do with Fox’s strategy of undercutting on price when it was started, and with … Continue reading →

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“Piggy-eyed wonder”

Posted on May 21, 2004 by ken

Conservative columnist (and novelist) Mark Helprin continued The Wall Street Journal’s hammering on the Bush administratin’s conduct of the war with a genuinely thoughtful column on Monday, saying that the present mess is “the consequence of a fiscal policy that … Continue reading →

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