Quotations 
Our unique view of recycling
That we in the developed world view recycling as a moral responsibility with tangible environmental benefits is astounding, a PR effort whose success is on par with DeBeers and the global obsession with diamonds. And that’s a good thing (the recycling bit, not the diamond-craving)—we’ll never achieve any sort of long term environmental stability without […]
Oscarness
If you managed to watch more than 45 minutes of tonight’s Oscar broadcast, you’re either far more patient than I or stuck in a studio apartment with a television that won’t turn off and only gets ABC. The appeal of the ceremony is along the same lines as the appeal of American Idol, and while […]
Monkey jokes
“Sometimes a joke about monkeys is, well, just a joke about monkeys.” –Daniel Luzer
Did McGwire get it right after all?
Joe Posnanski thinks so: And looking back you have to wonder if McGwire is the one guy in this whole absurd steroid mess who actually got it, the one guy who has come out of this thing with his dignity reasonably intact. McGwire refused to lie to make himself look better. He refused to turn […]
Noticing miracles
“My own claim to fame is I notice miracles. I don’t make them happen. They just happen. And I do a good job of noticing miracles happening all around me.” -Msgr. Michael Doyle, activist-pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Camden, N.J. Doyle was quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a new theater being built […]
Kindle still unnecessary
As usual, I have to agree with Rob Horning: Basically publishers have no incentive to encourage people to read books on screens and every incentive to get them to enjoy the fetish of the object. The preference consumers have shown for digitized music and iPods doesn’t seem to translate to books. The usefulness of the […]
Mass murder
“I don’t do Valentine’s Day. It celebrates the mass murder of flowers. But I did buy flowers for my dad’s girlfriend this year.” -Overheard today at the hardware store
FDR and the Great Depression
Channeling Vice President Joe Biden, Ohio Rep. Steve Austria made an interesting claim about President Franklin D. Roosevelt while discussing President Obama’s economic stimulus with the Columbus Dispatch editorial board earlier this week: “When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression…He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to […]