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Monthly Archives: January 2011

Sustinet lauded by Firedoglake

Monday, January 17, 2011

The folks, or at least one contributor to, Firedoglake think very highly of the recently announced Sustinet Board’s Draft Report: Both the new health care bill and other federal laws like ERISA make it very hard to for states to adopt my preferred solution of single-payer health care, or even my secondary choices, like a […]

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Mapping the USA

Sunday, January 16, 2011

This map, which I saw on Digby’s blog, is not terribly surprising for what it illustrates: the incidence of death by firearm in the various states. And yes, once again, despite all our faults, we here in Connecticut can be justly proud of being at the forefront of the forces of reason. The folks who […]

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Fast tracking sainthood

Saturday, January 15, 2011

It appears that good Pope Benedict is in an unseemly rush to sanctify his predecessor. For the non-Catholics among you, I will explain first that the Catholic Church has appointed itself God’s master, so to speak, in that it can declare a person a saint. Many a sinner has apparently entered heaven that way. The […]

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Friday Night Music

Friday, January 14, 2011

A couple of repeats, each suggested in part by recent events. My wife suggested this song in tribute to Obama’s masterful performance, which, at least for one brief shining moment, did seem to bridge the troubled waters. And this one occurred to me, though I won’t try to articulate why.

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Channeling the Dead

Friday, January 14, 2011

I recently read an article somewhere on the vast internet, in which the point was made that we Americans have a tendency to venerate our political ancestors that is not necessarily a universal attribute. Britishers, the writer pointed out, do not cite William Pitt to validate their political positions, much less debate about his position […]

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Obama does good

Thursday, January 13, 2011

In a brief post yesterday, written as I was watching the memorial event for the Arizona victims, I noted my irritation at the, probably unintentional (and therefore even more objectionable) exclusionist religiosity of some of the speakers, notably Eric Holder. Obama’s speech had none of that, and I think, overall, it was masterful. There will […]

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Sigh

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

We are watching the proceedings in Arizona. It appears to be a religious ceremony. Eric Holder just read from an Epistle of Paul, in which we are assured that Jesus, who it is presumed we all worship, is with us. Thus are large chunks of Americans excluded from the ceremony, including, at least in part, […]

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Blue snow

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

My wife and I have spent the better part of the day digging out from the snowstorm, doing the driveway in stages. I noticed something I never had before; some of the shoveled snow has a faint blue cast to it. I don’t think I was imagining it, since my wife saw it too. I […]

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Great minds

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I believe it was Emerson who said that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. The operative word is “foolish”, but that is often ignored. Among American conservatives, there are apparently no little minds, as they are comfortably inconsistent, whether foolishly or not. They have of late been proving their minds are not […]

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Bowdlerizing Twain

Sunday, January 9, 2011

In the year just past, the unexpurgated, if somewhat bloated, Autobiography of Mark Twain was released, after the lapse of the 100 years he deemed necessary to safely publish it. But in the past few days we have learned that Twain will never outrun controversy, and never escape the narrow minded side of America that […]

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