Y’all… Well, one of you… Sought a Lincoln Chaffee thread. Whatever his standing in the presidential nomination polls* , there’s no doubt who wins the “most-likely-to-cure-insomnia-on C-SPAN 2” election. So. OK. Have a Lincoln Chaffee thread. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. *how it must burn the terrapin in the race to think that a Democrat-come-lately …
I Can’t Even…
Four relatives who cheered their children at a high school graduation in Senatobia, Mississippi, have been served with arrest warrants for disturbing the peace. To no one’s surprise, I’m sure, at least the two of the four facing charges who have been identified in news reports are African American. The complainant, Senatobia school superintendent Jay Foster is white. Mr Foster is a …
No One Could Have Predicted
That an anti-Muslim flame-thrower would try to turn his followers’ fear into cash: Jon Ritzheimer, the man who organized an anti-Muslim protest rally and “draw Muhammad” cartoon contest on Friday in Phoenix, reportedly launched a GoFundMe page to raise $10 million to “protect his family.” KPNX television reporter Brahm Resnik tweeted on Sunday that Ritzheimer had set up a …
Mountains, Stars, Conflict
You’ll forgive, I hope, the self promotion here, but I want to draw attention to an essay I have in The Boston Globe today. It’s about the controversy over the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) that is beginning to be constructed at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Mauna Kea is …
I’ll Be Your Cornhusker Tonight
Go Nebraska! Nebraska on Wednesday became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, with lawmakers defying their Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of capital punishment who had lobbied vigorously against banning it. By a 30 to 19 vote that cut across party lines, the Legislature overrode …
RIP John Nash
Sad news out of New Jersey today: John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical genius whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the 2001 movie “A Beautiful Mind,” has died along with his wife in a car crash on the New Jersey Turnpike. He was 86. Nash and Alicia Nash, 82, of Princeton Township, were …
The Arc Of History, Ireland Edition
Those of us of a certain age can only marvel at this photograph: There you have what was for a generation the face of the IRA — with all of its connections to Catholic Irish history — next to Panti Bliss, aka Rory O’Neill, who serves, semi-accidentally, as a leading voice for Irish marriage equality and sex/gender equal rights — …