Note: this was drafted with the intention of posting it from the trip, but, well, that didn’t happen. So just pretend this was a live blog… There’s one significant plus to having a nomadic boyfriend, and that’s that I have a really great excuse to visit some very cool places that I’d otherwise never see. […]
I recently received a note from a college friend, currently serving as a Captain in the Marines. He’s stationed in Afghanistan, and like most service people in war zones, he doesn’t exactly have tons of time to post status updates on Facebook or check in via email on a regular basis. So to keep in […]
While my African and Caribbean friends were gloating about Usain Bolt’s win in the 100 meters at the World Championships for Track & Field, another controversy was building off the track. An 18-year old South African, Caster Semenya, won the women’s 800 meters, blowing away the field. The problem, for many people, is that they […]
Yesterday, I finally got down to see the Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Even though it was a complete mob scene, I’m glad I made it, and not just because it was ungodly hot out and the MFA is nicely air conditioned. Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese were […]
Yesterday, one of my favorite Berkman fellows, Aaron Shaw (we share a love of North Oakland), gave a brilliant talk at the Berkman Luncheon Series on the research he’s doing on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Since you can watch the video yourself (and I highly recommend that you do) I won’t spend too much time repeating […]
This is one of those books that sits with you long after you’ve finished it. The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins, the renowned war correspondent from the New York Times, was a fascinating read chronicling the author’s time spent in Afghanistan before and after 9/11/2001, and his three plus years in Iraq after war was […]
I’ve struggled mightily to articulate, to myself and others, why I insist on being Catholic. It’s very hard to reconcile the peace I feel in the church with my deep disappointment in the leadership. This essay, by Michelle Madigan, reveals far better than I can just about what I feel and why I choose to […]
I’ve just spent the last 48 hours watching waaayy more children’s television than I ever wanted to watch. Dora the Exlporer, Go Diego Go, Little Bill, Pinky Dinky Doo, The Backyardigans, you name it. All of these shows seem to be 100 times more advanced than the stuff I watched as a kid (Inspector Gadget, […]
I spent a long time drafting that last post, and I’m still not really happy with it, probably because I haven’t really decided how I feel about the issue. But when did that ever stop me from having an opinion! Anyway, my view sharpened a little bit after I read this interview with Mark Sanford […]
“At our very first meeting, Juliet Schwarz turned to Rachel and asked if she loved me and, if yes, what it was about me that she loved. (…) “’Love,’” Rachel desperately replied, “is such an omnibus word.” Here was an irony of our continental separation (undertaken, remember, in the hope of clarification): it had made […]