Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
"Classical" music is widely perceived to be boring, but one composer that succeeded in changing that (if we ignore the sheer length of his operas) was Richard Wagner. Controversial in life and death, he changed the face of Western music in ways that few have, even (in some ways) paving the way for cinematic music …
Continue reading "War at the Opera: Opening of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser in Paris"
He did anyway, in his address to Hampton University: US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media. Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse …
Continue reading "Obama Shouldn't Bemoan the Diversions of the Technological World"
The first, from Mother Jones: Late on Thursday night, an effort to rein in the mega-banks that brought the American economy to the brink of disaster died on the Senate floor. Sens. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had offered an amendment that would have broken up the biggest banks and forced them to …
Ben Macintyre at the Times wants to know, and so do we: On the Cameron plane in Scotland: prosciutto, mozzarella and peach salad, followed by rare roast lamb on a bed of lentils, with chocolate mousse for dessert. On the Brown bus, in Scotland: a bottle of Irn-Bru and a curly sandwich. George W. Bush …
Continue reading "Why is Right-Wing Campaign Food Better Than Left-Wing Campaign Food?"
Which says they're too proud for their own good: When State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley refused to tell reporters which countries have offered assistance to help respond to the BP oil spill, the State Department press corps was flabbergasted. "As a policy matter, we're not going to identify those offers of assistance until we are …
That's one way to deflect the sorry reality of the situation: "I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in," Brown told Neil Cavuto. "We …
Continue reading "Robert Gibbs: When Conspiracy Theories Are Easier to Take Than the Truth"
As the Qur'an would say, it's a clear sign: Pakistan was carved out of the Muslim-majority areas of British India in 1947, the world's first modern nation based solely on Islam. The country's name means "Land of the Pure." The capital city is Islamabad. The national flag carries the Islamic crescent and star. The cricket …
Continue reading "If the Cricket Team Wears Green, It Must Be an Islamic State"
Well, at least the rich: A fledging private effort to rein in the amount of taxes residents pay for county programs is taking shape. About a dozen residents met Thursday at the North End (of Palm Beach) home of Town Council President David Rosow to discuss how to achieve that objective, according to resident Stuart …
Continue reading "The Rich and Famous Move to Cut Government Spending"
I've documented on this blog and related ones some of the "interesting" business trips I have taken, especially outside the US. One of those took place in 1980, when my brother and I, fresh from an offshore technology exhibit at Earl's Court, took a plane to Hamburg to meet with a prospective German representative for …
As a follow-up to this, from his Homilies on Hebrews: What then? do not we offer every day? We offer indeed, but making a remembrance of His death, and this remembrance is one and not many. How is it one, and not many? Inasmuch as that Sacrifice was once for all offered, and carried into …
Continue reading "John Chrysostom on the Sacrifice of the Mass"
Positive Infinity 