The Nature of Things

Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallander is a real sad-sack. His interpersonal relationships are a mess, totally unsatisfying. He's middle-aged and overweight and his heart often races with the slightest bit of exercise, leading him to fear that he's having a heart attack. Perhaps worst of all, he's come to doubt that he is any good at his job. He seems indecisive and unable to find and follow up clues to their logical conclusion. He suffers from serious bouts of depression. His life seems to be going downhill fast. Then, it gets worse. The time is April 1992 and in peaceful, democratic Sweden, a female estate agent disappears. Her husband reports the disappearance to the police and Inspector Wallander is on the case. He feels, instinctively, that the woman will never be found alive, but he doggedly pursues the clues that he has. However, nothing seems to make any sense, and, finally, when her body is found and suddenly a house nearby explodes, the case gets murkier and murkier. Th...

I came across an interesting entry on Daily Kos this morning, by way of their contributor who goes by the moniker "The Great State of Maine."  The piece takes several bits of conventional wisdom that are routinely reported by mainstream media sources, or are parroted by the all-knowing pundits from the inside-the-beltway exclusive club, and it busts them for the myths that they are, with links given as references.  I can't resist reproducing the busted myths and the references for the truth about them here:    > Ben Bernanke is the most inflationary Fed chairman in recent memory.        (Except  he's not. ) > Cutting taxes is a magical, mystical sure-fire job creator! (Except  it's not. ) > Allowing voters to register on election day results in widespread fraud. (Except  it doesn't. ) > As the Koch brothers' net worth rises, so does employment at their companies. (Except  it doesn't. ) > American companies are o...

It's fall, the Time of the Leaf Peepers.  It's the time when travelers spread out across the country to stare at deciduous trees and get drunk on the kaleidoscope of their brilliant changing colors. Up East, many of the prime leaf peeping areas, in places like Vermont and New Hampshire, were hard hit by Hurricane Irene and will have their normal big season of tourism disrupted by the damage that the storm did. In Texas, which is not a prime leaf peeping area and not really known for much fall color, a lot of the color in the forests this fall is like this: And this: The forests, including this small area behind my backyard, are full of dead trees. Thousands of dead trees.  Here, brown has become the color of autumn. But, in  other parts of the country , the changing of the colors has already begun and will continue and intensify in coming weeks.  In case you can't get away to enjoy those colors, here's a 60 second video just to give you a taste.  Enjoy!

Geraldine Brooks has a knack for taking a tiny thread of true historical fact and weaving it into a fine and intricate pattern that gives a clear picture, though fictional, of the period about which she is writing. She's done it again with  Caleb's Crossing . In this case, the slender thread is the graduation from Harvard in 1665 of its first Native American student, a member of the Wampanoag tribe from Martha's Vineyard. Brooks has imagined a biography  for that young man that vividly explores what life was like for both the Puritans and the Native American tribes on the islands off Massachusetts in that period. The story is told through the voice of Bethia Mayfield, daughter of a minister, a good man who does his best to live his hard faith and to bring a healing message of salvation to the tribes. When we meet Bethia, she is a young girl, living with her father and mother and her older brother. Theirs is a hard life and Death constantly sits on their shoulders. One after...

We've now had three debates of the Republicans candidates for president and it's the audiences at those debates that have made the most news. In the first debate, the audience cheered wildly when one of the questioners prefaced a question by pointing out that Rick Perry, as governor of Texas, had overseen some 234 executions of prisoners.  The audience really, really liked that.  They really like capital punishment. In the second debate, a question contained the scenario of a young, healthy man who chooses not to get health insurance and then suffers a catastrophic illness that puts him into a coma for six months.  The question was about whether the man should be treated or allowed to die. Some in the audience shouted that he should die.  It's all about personal responsibility, you see.  You refused to buy health insurance, so you must suffer the consequences.  And if you couldn't afford to buy health insurance?  Well, then, you are just out of luck. ...

(1.)  I wonder if President Obama will have the intestinal fortitude to continue to press hard for the "Buffett tax" in the face of intransigent Republican opposition.  Every poll that I have seen shows that the public is strongly in favor of his plan to require the super-rich to pay their fair share of taxes.  Obama has a populist wave of support at his back if he has the will and skill to use it.  Meantime, the Republicans complain that there is a large percentage of Americans who pay no income tax.  I assume they are not referring to their friends the corporations and rich people who manage to leverage tax breaks into a zero tax bill.  No, they are talking about the poor who Michele Bachmann screeches must pay something "even if it is only a dollar."  What apparently has not occurred to these people is that the poor who pay no income tax do so BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH INCO M E TO REQUIRE A TAX!   On   the other hand, they pay a dis...