Vivid, critical insomnolence

When you look at the big picture, 2005 was yet another glorious year for our planet. There were three hundred sixty-five successful rotations, as predicted, with a leap second thrown in tonight for good measure. The Sun did not explode, and the Moon did not spin off into space. Well done, Earth.
From a much more [...]

What a great weekend. I drove down to Jacksonville to visit the family. I loaded a cooler full of some foods that, as far as I know, are unavailable in the South—at least, not at the same quality as in Chicago: a few pounds of bocconcini, two pounds of Sicilian olive salad, a wedge of locatella cheese, and two [...]

Today, New York City’s bus and subway workers went on strike. What a mess. I wonder whether it matters to them that the strike is illegal. State law forbids public employees from striking, so the Transport Workers Union is being fined one million bucks per day. That’s roughly $30 per TWU employee, plus losing two days’ pay [...]

I stayed up late last night to watch the riots that might have followed the execution of Stanley Tookie Wiliams. Thank God, there were none. There were, however, plenty of stupid punks being disrespectful by mugging for the camera and calling their friends to tell them to turn on CNN or FOX. I wonder how those conversations [...]

HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” recently did a segment about Monday Night Football and its upcoming switch from ABC to ESPN, a move that would mark… the end… of an institution.
I don’t consider Monday Night Football to be an “institution” of the same significance as, say, an organized religion, or Congress, or marriage, or a [...]

This weekend my aunt, uncle and five-year-old cousin took me on a short trip through the suburbs and into Chicago. We passed many landmarks of familial and general interest that reminded me how time can fly.
We stopped at the cemetery where my Grandma Marianne and Grampa Julius are buried. (For those who would understand: Julius was my [...]