A couple of hours ago I felt my throat starting to get scratchy. This would be my third cold in about six weeks. There’s nothing like relentless damp weather, swinging temperatures, and a five year old to batter the ol’ immune system. It’s not doing a whole lot to brighten my mood, either, not that […]
I just do not have the mental energy to even look at the news to comment. But it occurs to me that at 10:30 yesterday, my students and I were discussing whether moral theory can tell us anything about the idea of self-sacrifice, or why we feel that it is a praiseworthy act when someone […]
Are you pondering what I’m pondering? Probably not, unless you’re pondering the best example of Alton Brown’s Good Eats series to show in a philosophy class tomorrow. But I think I need something to visualize the pragmatist idea of education being connected to life, and while we’re at it, maybe we’ll learn something about ice […]
We’re back home after a weekend trip that involved a lot of time on the Pennsylvania Turnpike – some of it driving. And it occurred to me that Pennsylvania, like several other states, is considering leasing its toll roads to for-profit companies, and then using the proceeds to pay for major initiatives (in Pennsylvania’s case, […]
When I was in high school DC Comics published a title called The Ray, about a teenaged hero who lived in Philadelphia. I bought a few issues but quickly lost interest. If I remember correctly, one of my major disappointments was that the colorist was making what should have been a bright, dazzling book too […]
One of the web comics I check out regularly is Dork Tower. John Kovalic usually has a good sense of humor about the fannish, geekish things I enjoy. His latest blog post also demonstrates that he’s one hell of a good guy. So go give the site a look-see. I’m gonna go give my family […]
So I finally got my 2nd-generation 8 GB black iPod Nano the other day. As is true of so many other areas of my life, I am ridiculously spoiled. I remember my first MP3 player, and how deliriously happy I was to have 32 MB of memory to carry an hour’s worth of songs with […]
Turns out that while I was writing yesterday’s essay about substance in the presidential campaign, John Baer was publishing a commentary in the Daily News wondering why the two candidates he considers to have the most substantial policy experience – Michael Nutter and Dwight Evans – are currently trailing in the polls. The answers he […]
There’s been a recurring criticism against Barack Obama within the presidential primary discussions at MyDD and Daily Kos, and it seems to follow along the lines of a criticism floating through the overall landscape of the presidential primary. The criticism is that Obama is campaigning primarily on his personality and his let’s-work-together rhetoric, and is […]
I find it interesting that fairly important people in Philadelphia politics find it worthwhile to engage in discussion over at Young Philly Politics. I’ve been looking at one thread that’s gotten pretty heated, that focuses on a Daily News report that “outsider” candidate Tom Knox was approached by some top figures in the Democratic Party […]