I’m a big fan of Zipcar for many reasons, among which the least-discussed is that it lets me never worry about car maintenance. I’m one of those auto n00bs that mechanics love to see come through the door: ignorant, anxious, and trusting. So owning my own car is an ongoing maintenance liability: every “check engine” [...]
In the past several months, Internet-and-democracy types have wondered how Obama’s Netroots-savvy campaign might translate into governance. Should Obama win on Tuesday, will we see some form of wiki governance? How “Google-transparent” will the Administration and its agencies be? Will Obama focus an empowered blogosphere to pressure Congress to pass major reforms?
These are useful speculations, [...]
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”
–Oliver Wendell Holmes
Holmes’ view is not very popular today, but the reality is that a modern society cannot exist without a well-funded government. Nobody likes taxes, and we all believe we deserve the full fruits of our labor, but it is a common human foible [...]
Total economic meltdown sure is confusing, isn’t it?
So where to turn for helpful information? Well, the sense I’m getting is: while many experts know and agree on what’s happening (collapse of mortgages and mortgage-backed derivatives, collapse of other lines of credit, credit crunch across the board), we are in uncharted territory as far as what [...]
With warm weather teasing the Boston area, it’s a little surprising to find a reminder of spring in your fridge drawer. But a few days ago I’d discovered a head of cabbage that I’d almost fully shorn was bursting forth with new life.
I don’t know if this cabbage is alive by the biological definition of [...]
Sometimes life feels like a continuous narrowing of possibilities: the babies who begin with infinite potential soon learn that fire burns, that relationships can end in heartbreak, that some cancers are inoperable. Caution becomes am amulet against a dangerous world.
The human race survived because our ancestors learned to fear tall cliffs and dangerous animals. In [...]
One of the songs most consistently played at Obama rallies has been U2’s “City of Blinding Lights,” which I believe is one of the best tracks from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The song captures Obama’s core message: a turning away from cynicism and irony back to authentic and hopeful engagement with the world. [...]
January thaw
awakens foolish flies
But over the lake
a cold wind blows.
Fire but scorches the earth:
rain snuffs reckless flames
Rivers carve running
seeking rest.
The sea’s breezes
chastise intemperate land.
But
sometimes
the earth trembles
placid no more the ocean rises
and the tidal wave
comes
September 11, 2001 was the kind of glorious, late-summer day that makes living in New England worthwhile. Its clear blue skies provided a flawless, natural canvas for the human atrocity that would unfold that morning. So it brings some relief to me that this year the spectacular September weather shifted by a day, and 9/11/2007 [...]
Singapore’s multiracial, multicultural population looks like a twist of the American kaleidoscope: East and South Asians predominate, while whites are a distinct minority. One morning, walking against the flow of rush-hour foot traffic in City Link Mall, I suddenly realized that I was identifying with the handful of Caucasian faces rather than the darker and [...]
