test blog 3

One thing that's impossible to avoid in Southern California is the amazingly beautiful weather. I often scoff at people who come home from vacations recounting a weather report - "The first day it was cloudy, then the sun came out. The second day it rained in the morning..." - and since I'm not a beach-goer, the weather on vacation is never that much of an issue for me. But man oh man, when the weather is perfect every day, how good you feel! I'm sure I mentioned this to my friends way too many times. Almost every day is a perfect spring day. In the winter, it never snows and never gets too cold. (And if you crave snow, there are mountains nearby.) In the summer, it gets hot, but without humidity. My friends, both former New Yorkers, readily attest that 100F in SoCal is way more manageable than 85F in New York City. I used to think I'd never want to live anywhere without a full spectrum of seasons. And I do love winter. But there's no getting around it, th...

I was in New York a week too early! One week later, I could have witnessed a Second Avenue Subway groundbreaking ceremony. I missed the last one, more than 30 years ago, so it would have been a rare opportunity. But fortunately, this will not be the last Second Avenue Subway groundbreaking. If I live long enough, I'll be able to witness another. Because, as every New Yorker knows, the question is not when will the Second Avenue Subway be built. It's when this story will run again. Whenever anyone mentions about the on-again-off-again discussion about whether to tear down the Gardiner , the elevated highway on the south edge of downtown Toronto, I think of our old friend the Second Avenue Subway. It's hard to explain this phenomenon to a non-New Yorker. Put it this way: the old "You know you're really a New Yorker when..." test could easily end with "...you know the Second Avenue Subway will never be built". Subways run uptown-downtown (approximately ...

An update on one of the Republicans' many wars, this one the war on women - perhaps better thought of as the war on modernity. From Kim Gandy, president of NOW , "Right Wing 'Father'land" ( go to original for links; all emphasis mine). In late January, Japanese Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa was the subject of several news headlines around the world when he referred to women as "birth-giving machines" and urged them, in light of Japan's declining birthrate, to "do their best per head" as a public service. Consequently, some have called for the minister's removal, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has refused to do so. Shocking? Not really. Feminists probably find this incident oddly familiar. That's because our own Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is chock-full of Hakuos, and our administration doesn't want for a Shinzo who ignores our protests—his name is George. The only difference is that the Hakuos of the West sh...

While I was reading en route, I caught up on my Krugman. I thought this one, "Sweet Little Lies" was particularly good. Brought to you by truthout . Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can't picture their leaders being dishonest about such things. But there's another political lesson I don't think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie - the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren't meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong. For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush's credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most pe...

Did you hear about this one? From Xymphora , from Atrios , and from Cannonfire . Let's see, the New York Times was the cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, and the Washington Post is helping to justify the invasion of Iran. With friends like this, who needs Fox. Thanks to my Researcher-in-Chief .

I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of a great American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. , at the age of 84. Information on most things Vonnegut is available here . From wmtc, you can listen to this biting interview on the CBC, in which Vonnegut describes his America. But the best thing to do is read Slaughterhouse-Five , Breakfast of Champions or Cat's Cradle , then read more.

On my flight home, I read almost all of the current issue of Vanity Fair , a special green issue . It's excellent; I recommend it highly. I finished Roddy Doyle's Oh, Play That Thing ; I absolutely loved it. I'm about to start something I've been waiting for a long time: At Canaan's Edge , the final installment of Taylor Branch 's monumental history of "America in the King years" . I devoured each of the first two books and had been waiting to get the third in paperback. (Some readers may be pleased to know I purposely bought it in Toronto, not New York.) If you're interested in learning about the civil rights movement, and in this period of US history, you can't do better than these meticulously researched and beautifully written tomes. The writing is very dense, which can make it somewhat challenging, but always worth the effort, and then some.