1978 Poem
I’ve found a poem I wrote in 1978. That makes it the earliest one that I still have. It’s called Water Sprite.
Airline Maintenance Engineer Humor Meme
Here’s the email. It’s a very good bit of humor. See the comments at the bottom for status. After every flight, Qantas Airline pilots fill out a form, called a “gripe sheet” (or “squawk sheet”) which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are…
Rainy Night in Georgia
It’s been raining for more than 24 hours. I’ve just been out walking in the back yard, and found big mushrooms growing under the oak trees. Last week, I saw others of the same type out in the woods; those were even more gigantic – three times as big. Does anyone know what kind of mushrooms these are? The ones in our yard are usually very tiny, and grayish, and they carpet whole areas. Perhaps they are a springtime mushroom…
Do Political Blogs Change Your Views on Issues?
In answer to NOW’s Question of the Week: Do you read blogs? Tell us if blogs change your views on political issues. Blogs are of many kinds: scrapbooks, personal journals, advertising spaces, photo logs. Political blogs are only one form of the blog. The blogosphere is about freedom of expression – dittoheads, propaganda portals, soap boxes, fake identities, but also debate, discussion, original ideas, and scrapbooked information/evidence/argument. Some political blogs actually investigate and report news. Some are focused tightly on…
Against the Day
I am really looking forward to Thomas Pynchon’s new book Against the Day, which is due out near the end of the year. The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland and Gravity’s Rainbow are already considered classics. This guy is a genius. Vineland is probably my favorite read. The Crying of Lot 49 is a perfect logical construction of undecidability, and if you’ve never read Pynchon, it’s a good place to start. Gravity’s Rainbow is something you have to read to…
Impeach
I am participating in this blogger action, in a limited way. I’m not following directions, which would be to replace my entire front page with the single word “Impeach.” I am participating in this more limited fashion because we don’t have the congressional votes for an impeachment process and I think there are actually even more important issues to work on. In the November election, we ought to be proposing solutions to this octopus-armed disaster that the Bush administration has…