Curated knowlege, trenchant insights & witty bon mots
The New York Comedy Festival is now on, and some courageous, original, boundary-breaking young comic will take home the Andy Kaufman award. Some excerpts from the NYT story: … As befits a city where Andy Kaufman got his start, it has a grown man acting like a hyperactive boy who thinks the audience members are [...]
Thu, November 3 2005 » Main Page, Minutiae » Comments Off
This NYT editorial talks about how Coloradans voted down a $3.7 billion tax cut and lifted the U.S.'s toughest state spending and taxing limits. Some excerpts: The vote clearly has to do with the pain of a permanently underfinanced government. Middle-class and low-income residents were getting burned by ever deepening spending cuts in education, health care [...]
Thu, November 3 2005 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off
Rosa Parks, who helped spark the fight for civil rights for blacks in the United States by triggering the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, was buried Wednesday in her adopted city of Detroit. It's worth looking at the video of the Rev. Al Sharpton's and former U.S. President Bill Clinton's speeches attached to the CTV.ca story. If you [...]
Thu, November 3 2005 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off
Mo Dowd's weekend NYT piece adapted from her new book Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide, is drawing some fire. In Slate, social critic Katie Roiphe fired back with Is Maureen Dowd Necessary? Some excerpts: Maureen Dowd's penchant for provocative overstatement has found its most recent outlet in a much talked about excerpt of her [...]
Thu, November 3 2005 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off
The CIA operates a global covert internment network that it uses to interrogate its top al Qaeda suspects, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Here's the story. It came under some criticism at CJR Daily: The Post article does take note of “legal experts and intelligence officials” who said that “the CIA's internment practices also would [...]
Thu, November 3 2005 » * Big Picture Stuff, Main Page » Comments Off
When you have to wave frantically at a Toronto cabbie when he's passengerless and stopped in traffic not 10 feet from you, you can almost be assured you aren't dealing with one of the city's best and brightest. Normally, you don't even have to look at a cab to be honked at. But still, time [...]