Section 5: The Death of Tragedy: Tragedy has had a long history and has always been, and indeed continues to be, of great cultural significance.  Who has not heard of Shakespeare ?  Even my own mother, who left school when she was 15 in 1932 had studied Julius Caesar (not ranked as a trage...

I have been thinking for awhile now that the traditional sense of fashion is dying before our very eyes. Mostly it's the fault of the Internet, that Great Leveler of Culture and Identity. Control of journalism and the entertainment industry is now becoming a thing in the hands of the average person....

Cool: That it is small. That Apple’s speech synthesis now does a passable Swedish voice. Not so very: That you, too, can now get the unfettered Stephen Hawking-grade UI experience. That you are now confined to the Apple headphones (there’s a good model… which costs as much as the i...

I was reading today on Yahoo, and after getting past the ridiculous headline (World’s richest men are billionaires) I went on to read that the top four of these fortunate people shift positions from year to year but the field stays pretty much the same. It got me to thinking how different the ...

President Bush “will give his first post-presidency U.S. speech in Erie, Pa., on June 17 to the Manufacturer & Business Association, which serves companies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.” Bush’s first speech will be March 17 in Calgary, Canada. “No one wants [President ...

I didn’t realize until the other day when I actually HAD to go to the post office how horribly depressing of an event it had become. Growing up and through most of my life the post office had always been a hub of activity for the town. You would run into a neighbor or someone you knew and the peop...

     "If The Shoe Was On The Other Foot"- P. LaBelle I feel the way I feel. You feel the way you feel. Sometimes we are not going to agree. But it is my hope that we can find a way to at least meet each other in the middle. I respect the way you feel. I hope that you resp...

And now, for another exciting post of links and short comments: I’ve always been aware of having been gifted with a pretty powerful attention span. I have always kind of assumed it came from becoming a reader at a very young age, but I guess it’s equally plausible that things are actuall...

A copy of Walter Kirn's Lost in the Meritocracy (a reiteration of the article with little to justify the extra 150 pages, as it turned out) came through my office yesterday, and I read it. Two things:1. David Samuels already wrote this book.2. I am sympathetic to skeptics of the academic meritocracy...

Avedon Carol is sick of sycophancy. I just want to say that I'm really sick of getting constant announcements that I can now buy an Obama trinket of some kind, a T-shirt or a coffee mug or god-all-knows-what. I don't support Obama , I support the advancement of policies that will make the Un...