Watching the Olympics helped keep me from the “publish” button on a political related post over the weekend but also from a few other things. The relatively lengthy political post now appears simply as one of the items below rather than a full blown rant.
- One of the things I missed was that Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won the Hugo Award for Best Novel over the weekend, as well as the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. In a year in which I actually read all five Hugo finalists, I don’t know that it would have been my pick but don’t find the win surprising.
- My kind of spirtuality: The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen.
- Kudos to Homeland Security for actually having a blog post — including comments — about border laptop searches and seizures, including linking to the actual policy on it.
- How do you do on the Foreign Affairs Professional Reading List? I can say I have one — count ’em, one — on my bookshelves but that I haven’t read yet.
- Orwellian or Kafakaesque? Bush gives a speech saying we’re fighting extremists by promoting “freedom and liberty” as an alternative, the administration says that “the hateful ideology of the extremists by promoting a more hopeful alternative, one based upon freedom and liberty.” Just days before, his administration announced even if Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan, had been acquitted, he would still be considered an enemy combatant and remain detained at Guantanamo. Oh well, more fodder for Students for an Orwellian Society.
- As long as we’re on the political, what does it say for conventional wisdom when Wal-Mart and Sears shoppers are in the Bush/McCain camp and those at Marshall’s and Bloomingdale’s are in the Kerry/Obama camp?
- I guess this is what most addicts would say but I don’t know how much rehab I need for my “sordid, needy addiction.”
- Not surprisingly, things in the hockey world are slow in August. How slow? Well, The Hockey News has resorted to ranking USHL team logos. At least the Stampede took second and that was to a brand new logo.
The good of a book lies in its being read.
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
