Last point about Avatar I wanted to make: Movie-makers have had a lot of fun blurring the lines between the real world and artificial worlds. Only recently have they been doing the same thing with real and artificial selves. And I think there’s a reason for that. Only in the age of online communities and […]

Saw “Avatar” two weeks ago, and some observations about it stay with me  — some things it was trying to say, some things it did say, and the differential between the two.
(Two quick caveats: 1 - This will include spoilers. 2 - I’m not sure it will make sense if you haven’t seen the movie.) […]

I love the Orthodox Church, but sometimes when I read editorials and proclamations that come from the highest levels, I want to scream.
Case in point: This editorial in today’s Wall St. Journal written by the Greek Patriarch. Titled “Our Indivisible Environment,” the piece speaks of the Orthodox Church’s commitment to environmental issues, noting that last […]

Interesting that both Barack Obama and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates called this latest brouhaha and the allegations of racism over Gates’ arrest a “teachable moment.” I agree. So what should it teach them, now that both Obama and Gates have started backpedaling for all their worth?

If we’re ever really going to be post-racial as […]

Don’t you hate to waste a lovely spring day on a bad mood? But the sun is glistening outside, lawnmowers are humming, … and I’m bummed out.

It’s probably my own fault. Last week I looked in on a series of YouTube videos that I should’ve known would bring me down. They were a panel discussion […]

The dog and I have retired to the den. My office is a prettier room, but right now it’s also a colder room which trumps other considerations. Missouri isn’t being hit as hard as other Midwestern states with this nasty cold front. But it’s still cold enough to make me say what I always say […]

I got all weirded out by finding out about a mystery writer recently. So now I don’t know whether I can keep reading her books or not. And I don’t know if that’s just me, or if it’s the kind of thing that other people would understand.
I had read a mystery by Anne Perry […]

Conservatives are supposed to be being conciliatory right now. We’re supposed to be acting classy and doing all that elegant stuff like congratulating Obama and taking our rightful place as the losers with the ‘good sport’ pin on our lapel.
That’s baloney. I’m a sore loser, and I’m honest enough to admit it.

In a way, though, […]

I’m in the airport waiting to go home, and the young people across from me are talking about the election. The funny thing is that I knew they were doing that even before I heard what they were saying. It was obvious from the change in body language, how they suddenly turned towards each other […]

… the death of newspapers

Did you know that newspapers are going away? They are, and at the rate they’re sinking, the form they’re in 10 years from now will be hardly recognizeable. No one’s fault, really — it’s called ‘the internet’ and it delivers more information that you really care about in a second than […]