Quick Hitts

I deal with Christmas differently than most atheists.
I celebrate it. I put up lights and a tree and give gifts and say “Merry Christmas” and mean it. I’ve played Santa Claus on several occasions, with the full costume, enjoyed it, and will probably do it again.
Devout Christians rail against how secular the holiday [...]

I’ve subscribed to Wired for years. At a buck an issue, it makes for good bathroom reading. If it goes up to a buck and a quarter, though, I’ll let my subscription lapse.
You can study good design by A) studying good design and learning from it and B) studying really bad design and [...]

I’m working on a project that needs some into, outro, and background music. I’d like to use music that sounds like music from the late 80’s: Bands like Ah Ha, Supertramp, The Eurymithics and maybe a hair band or two. Since this will be distributed as a podcast, it has to have a [...]

The Republican Part is in shambles. They are now a minority in congress, and more importantly, they’re regarded as far-right fundamentalists by many Americans. They’ve allowed the fundies to take over the party, and the results have been disastrous.
They’ve abandoned their core principles. They claim to be the party of small government, [...]

I swear I’m not going out looking for stories about cops shooting dogs. They’ve just become so common that I stumble across them every couple of weeks in the course of casual surfing.
This time it was in Pittsburgh. A sheriff’s deputy, looking to serve papers on someone, went into the wrong backyard, where [...]

The 1969 Woodstock Festival was the defining moment of my generation. Nearly a half million people attended, and twelve million of them will eagerly tell you about being there.
I’m wondering if the inauguration of Obama will be this generation’s defining moment. How many hundreds of thousands of people will be crowding the capital [...]

It’s over.  Finally!  I enjoy the theater of politics (and am fully aware that it is nothing but theater) but this was like watching Warhol’s movie “Empire” (a single eight hour shot of the Empire State building) without taking a pee break.
The Good
In every election there is fraud, chicanery and a bit of honest [...]

More than a half century ago Emma Goldman said “If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.”
Now we’re all being encouraged to vote vote vote, rock the vote, get out the vote, make your heard, push for change, to blah blah blah blah blah…
I used to think people who didn’t vote had no right to [...]