William Thomas, R.I.P.

About a year or so ago I went to Washington,DC for the first time.  It was business, and as such I only had a few hours to myself, but I had a hotel room within easy walking distance of the … Continue reading

Making Music: The Fossil Fools

A moment of epiphany for me was when I realized that there was something inherently wrong with professional sports.  It wasn’t steroids or the incessant hype or the fixation on statistics down to the molecular level.  It was the realization … Continue reading

Joining the Twittering Classes

As I slouch from middle age to full-on geezerdom I appreciate more and more the implied license one has to be a curmudgeon.  It comes in especially handy if you aren’t by nature an “early adopter”.  It took me until … Continue reading

A Tangent to the Carnage in Gaza

When I heard the news that Israel was once again sending its military might against the people of Gaza, I suddenly remembered something I had heard on the radio a little over a year ago. I was working on some … Continue reading

Learning to Wrangle Electrons

In other venues, I’ve lamented the fact that learning how to play with electronics has been one of my intellectual white whales.  There are many, many books and web sites out there that exist to help people like me, but … Continue reading

Restoring Intellectual Sanity

Now that the triumph of Barak Obama at the polls is a little more than a week behind us, I have sufficiently come down from the adrenaline high of the election to think clearly about what this could mean for … Continue reading

Proposition 8, Homosexuality, and the Bible: An Excursus

Now that the “family values” wing in California has proposed a ballot initiative (Proposition Eight) for a constitutional amendment to prevent families consisting of gay couples, I thought this would be a good time to examine the alleged religious underpinnings … Continue reading