From Garrison Keillor’s wonderful poetry and writing website Writer’s Almanac came this today. “Today is the 60th anniversary of the day on which President Harry Truman announced that the Second World War had come to an end. You might argue that more human beings were happy on this day in […]
Today’s Boston Globe incuded this Associated Press story: One person went so far as to make her own independent film about dieting at McDonald’s. “Me and Mickey D” follows Soso Whaley, of Kensington, N.H., as she spends three 30-day periods on the diet. She dropped from 175 to 139 pounds, […]
Frank Rich writes that the war is already over, but President Bush doesn’t know it yet. “What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson’s March 1968 plan for retreat in […]
I just opened my email to find comments posted about yesterday’s post about Chinese Sweet Wormwood. BUT IT WAS SPAM! Some freakin’ auto loan outfit put up ‘comments’ pitching new car loans….in the guise of blog comments. This is a sinister development, one which I hope can be stopped. I […]
Howard W. French writes in today’s NY Times about the acres and acres of a new crop, called qinqhat, or sweet wormwood, that’s become a huge cash producer in China–Because Novartis is making anti-malarial drugs with its active ingredient. “Even peasants closely associated with these efforts, however, say they are […]
Target is taking over the New Yorker next week, buying all available ad space. But they don’t have any stores in Manhattan! New York Times’ Stuart Elliot wrote. “Many of Target’s special ads are aimed at New York City for reasons that include a desire to burnish the image of […]
Every week I get an email from E magazine. Sometimes these folks cry hysterically, such as when they claimed that every baby in the world is born polluted on the inside. But often they have good news about alternative ways to do things. Roddy Scheer reports today: “Biofuels” such as […]
Today we finally saw the first press mention as a result of the Associated Press story filed on Monday. The Boston Herald ran the short item in their “Take Offs” section, the story said in part…”Off the beaten path Far from the world of all-inclusive resorts, motorcoach tours, and standard […]
Gadling is a highter tier blog, and Erik does a great job. Here is his howl to the moon about Burning Man, the famous fall desert extravaganza. “Yes, dear people, the official countdown has begun. The raggedy hordes are assembling, brightening their tattoos, oiling their dreadlocks, and buffing their bongs, […]
Abe Hirschfeld once attempted, in 1993, to run the New York Post for 16 days. Finally, a full-scale staff revolt published an entire issue trashing him, including a page 1 picture of Post founder Alexander Hamilton shedding a tear. The eccentric self-made millionaire, who died this week, was famous for […]
Christopher Goffard of the St. Petersburg Times did some digging about the most famous CIA employee in the U.S. Outed CIA spy She married and soon divorced her college boyfriend. As a new recruit at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility, her skill with an AK-47 stunned classmates. She […]