World War I nerd here. We’ve all read All Quiet on the Western Front and seen the Metallica “One” video. The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones episode “Trenches of Hell” sparked something in me as a kid. Since then I’ve been consumed with reading, viewing and trying to grasp the meaning of the First World […]
Daisy Cutter pale ale from Half Acre Brewing Company: one of Chicago’s finest. My friend Mike linked to this NYT article about the birth of the Internet. It spotlights the creation of the Internet as a political football in the government vs. private industry debate, which was news to me: The Internet’s founding history is […]
Like most Americans, I can instantly recall what I was doing, thinking and feeling on September 11, 2001. Within a year I was working for the national news media in a New York City still processing the attack, and the ongoing military response to that day has been at the center of my brother’s, brother-in-law’s […]
Just stated my list to my friend Brian: Abraham Lincoln. Probably a cliché, but that’s a good thing. Benjamin Franklin. Smart, practical, and clearly a cool dude for a party. Teddy Roosevelt. Easily the most bad-ass liberal President. Other nominees?
My iPod started acting ill today, and now I’m in the middle of restoring the factory settings. Since I have to completely re-upload all of my music, photo and backed-up files, I got some time to write. First, the news: • At first today, it really annoyed me that the entire media-swilling world spent the […]
Happy 200th birthday to Honest Abe, the greatest President the United States has ever had and namesake for my ‘hood in Chicago. I probably shouldn’t use the term “hood” to describe arguably the most yuppified area in the country, but that’s how we do it in streetz of LP — Chads and Trixies fo’ life. […]
This morning I was on the subway thinking about the Korean War, just on the DL as usual, when it occurred to me that President Bush could learn a lesson from his professed exemplar, Harry S Truman. (No period after the S.) People in the Administration and the military have regularly accused Iran of aiding […]
This piece by Juan Cole ends on a perfect note: it’s one thing to make a disastrous mistake for the first time, but when the opportunity to predict the mistake’s consequences exists and one still undertakes the same disaster, then it goes beyond tragedy and into something worse.
I’m sitting here watching episode No. 2 in a row of Human Weapon, the History Channel’s show where two guys go around the globe and do martial-arts training native to various locations. I’d say they do maybe five minutes of actual history in these shows — all of which seems to center around the Pacific […]
Back from the Slate retreat at Mohonk House, readaz. It was a good time: lots of smart-writer conversation, lake swimming and board games. Why is it that every time someone proposes board or parlor games, I think, “This is mad lame,” only to end up having mad fun instead? Anyway, my friend Steve and I […]