I've often wondered about the likes of Paris Hilton, the Kardashians and other people who seem to be famous simply because they're famous. They don't produce anything, they don't create anything -- they really don't particularly do anything at all. And while I don't fault them for this, it has always seemed odd to me that they're celebrities for ( Read more... )

All of my coworkers have whiteboards. Some of them don't use them. For absolutely no reason whatsoever, it's suddenly occurred to me that this is an excellent opportunity for me to amuse myself. All I need is a whiteboard marker, which I have; the whiteboard, which they have; and access to their office while no one else is there, which I have at ( Read more... )

You're never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for. It's like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery.

--Bill McKibben
Politics, goes the old joke, comes from two words: poly, meaning many, and ticks, meaning blood-sucking creatures. This observation causes people to smile wryly and shake their heads ( Read more... )

For a while, I wanted to become good at origami. Being able to fold plain squares of paper into intricate designs is a skill worth having. It's also, as it turns out, a skill that's hard to acquire. Paper squares are notably reluctant to form themselves into dragons, meaning that there's rather a lot of work on the part of the origami ( Read more... )

You've spent a long day running the world, pulling the strings of governmental puppets and orchestrating stock market fluctuations. You've set the stage for two new wars, brokered a trade agreement, and made sure that "Olivia" would be the most popular girl's name for the coming year. Now all you want is to relax by the fire and chat with someone ( Read more... )

I'd like to present you with two short lists. The first one is entitled "Things I Didn't Know About Virginia Two Weeks Ago, But Have Since Learned." It consists of one item: evidently, to be on the ballot for a primary election in Virginia, you have to get 10,000 signatures, and each of the districts must have at least 400 residents represented ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I took up a new hobby that no one understands. I don't mean simply something like running a marathon, where people don't understand why I'd do it; I mean more like chess-boxing, where people honestly can't believe that they heard me correctly and ask me to repeat myself. Although part of that might be due to poor ( Read more... )

I wrenched my back over the weekend. I didn't do it during any of the physically demanding activities in which I participated, naturally; I slipped standing up and caught myself at a weird angle. It's unpleasantly painful, as you might expect, but basically manageable in any one posture. It's only transferring between positions that's presenting ( Read more... )

My fellow Americans. When I look around our great country, I see bridges everywhere. Not just the literal bridges, although I see those, too; some of them are quite large, and very hard to miss. But I see people of different religious beliefs working together in businesses, in charities, and in hobbies. I see different ethnicities coming ( Read more... )

I was driving to work today and, thanks to some combination of sensory inputs, suddenly had the idea that I was only moments away from waking up in a hotel room I stayed in while away on business many years ago. This distressed me, as my life's actually been going quite well since then, and I wasn't looking forward to having to redo everything I' ( Read more... )