Recent Comments

1. almost 3 years ago on Stuart Carlson

   I would love to know if reading the book The Color of Law — or even just a few chapters from it — would cause you to rethink your comment regarding “Blacks as incapable of rising up and grabbing the American Dream, the dream every other group has used to succeed through hard work”. The book may bring a realization that African-Americans have had to contend with barriers that simply didn’t exist — to the degree and yes, even the range — for other non-WASP groups. Possibly the nearest but still not-as-bad example was the treatment of Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the 1890s. The difference in both personal and governmental discrimination of African-Americans vs. all other immigrant groups is huge. (How’s this for a starter: No other immigrant group entered the U.S. — legally, for heaven’s sake! — against their will and for purchase by the highest bidder.) I fear that I’ve written too much, but there is SO MUCH to tell. Let me get back to the simple point that I don’t see how your quoted statement, above, can be maintained after learning about the facts presented in the book The Color of Law. Do you?

2. almost 5 years ago on Frank and Ernest

   Why are bagpipe players always marching? To keep ahead of the sounds.

3. almost 5 years ago on Frank and Ernest

   Easy to remember the correct use of Farther vs. Further. One is “real” (an actual distance), while the other is metaphorical. How to remember which is which? Easy! “Far” is “real”, thus, Farther means an actual distance (I have to drive a mile farther), thus, the other, not-far, one is a conceptual, or metaphorical, “distance” (I have further to go before I get my degree).

4. almost 5 years ago on Clay Bennett

   That used to be the job of the political parties — smoke-filled rooms and all that. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, that job was shifted to the primaries, i.e., to the people. Raises the old Founding Fathers debate about direct vs. indirect democracy.

5. almost 5 years ago on F Minus

   I had a somewhat different and very weird experience. My parents lived for years and years in a unit in an apartment building. I went to HS and college while living there, and began my career, and they continued living there for decades. I was Very familiar with the apartment, the kitchen, the two bedrooms, bathrooms, hallways, etc.

   One day, after decades, when my mother had made good friends with a women who had moved into the apartment directly downstairs from hers, I visited this woman in her apartment. When I entered this woman’s apartment I was stunned, in shell shock. It hadn’t occurred to me that the floor plan would be Exactly the same as my mother’s. It felt like a sort of Calvin-and-Hobbes moment, everything weirdly distorted: The layout was extremely familiar, but the furnishings and colors were all “wrong”! It was dizzying! I probably walked around with my jaw dropped; it was such a weird, almost impossible experience.

   On another occasion I went with a Chilean friend living in California to her home town in Chile. At one point we drove to a home she had lived in as a child. It was now a restaurant! We entered, and she was telling me where a wall between the living room and dining room had been removed, where the kitchen was, etc. I imagine it was also shocking for her to step into this place, now with diners at tables all over the place.

6. about 5 years ago on Frank and Ernest

   > “At least businesses are concerned with their businesses, not control over everything.” This suggests you think there’s a difference. Maybe a close look at corporate activity would be enlightening.

7. about 5 years ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   I think you’re mistaken (possibly due to political motivation) that the cause of the carbon tax is government ideology (liberal, as you think) rather than the tax being a reaction to the environmental hurricane on the horizon, caused by people (and, unfortunately until at least now, aided by governments of all stripes).

8. about 5 years ago on Herman

   “I see Gillette lost $6 Billion last year because less people shave now”

   You mean, people who are, somehow, less?? Tall people, short people, less people? Or perhaps you mean “fewer people”. Please use Fewer for countable things (Fewer gallons of water in the pool. Fewer dollars in the bank.) and Less for uncountable things (Less water in the pool. Less money in the bank.)

   Yes, is may seem a small point, but IS a point. And don’t get me started on the current trend of referring to people as things (“people that” rather than “people who”)!

9. over 5 years ago on Herman

   I’ll tell you who’s lid’s not on tight…

10. over 5 years ago on Looks Good on Paper

    Not in my experience. Yours??