John Scalzi’s “Whatever” is one of the few blogs I read every day, and I’m honored to make a guest appearance there in today’s Big Idea feature. I talk about Feynman, because it’s on my mind lately.
(It comes out next week!)
John Scalzi’s “Whatever” is one of the few blogs I read every day, and I’m honored to make a guest appearance there in today’s Big Idea feature. I talk about Feynman, because it’s on my mind lately.
(It comes out next week!)
Image by tsmall via Flickr
Nina Paley does great work, and has for years. Nina’s Adventures, Fluff, and most recently Sita Sings the Blues are all terrific. I link directly to Sita because you really want to see this movie, and learn its history. Really really.
But science? Who knew? You do, now! Go look.
…is more speech, or more money?
Both, apparently.
Sometimes being a member of the ACLU puts me in an uncomfortable position. Its enthusiastic support of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is one of those times.
Ira Glasser, former executive director, offers an explanation of why we should like this. Intellectually, I get it. But I still don’t like it. The Onion does its usual excellent job of highlighting why.
A reminder (see the previous post) about the book signing event at the Vault of Midnight Monday, July 20, at 6pm.
And…the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has found Apollo 11. Not that it was lost, but it’s great to see it still there, still casting a long shadow.
I heard two excellent speeches last night. John
McCain’s was very
different in tone and content from what I heard in the last few months
(and I think the election would have been much closer had it been that version of McCain we saw and heard all along). Barack Obama’s was very much a continuation of the tone and
content that helped convince me to support him last December.
I think we elected the right person to lead
us. President-elect Obama has at least 8 years of bad road to repair, so I hope he got a good night’s sleep.
If you’re a citizen of the United States and registered to vote, please head out to your polling place tomorrow. To paraphrase and quote a little from the late David Foster Wallace’s superb essay (originally published by Rolling Stone in 2000) “The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys And The Shrub”, don’t kid yourself into thinking there’s such a thing as not voting.
There is no such thing as not voting:
You either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard [partisan’s] vote.
So cast your own vote, not somebody else’s.
Updated, Nov. 4: I just voted, and I hope however this turns out that, unlike the way campaigns and partisans on all sides typically conduct themselves, people will take a lesson from John Wayne. Yeah, that John Wayne. I doubt I’ll ever have the occasion to quote him again, but he said just the right thing after the 1960 presidential election. He supported Nixon but said this about Kennedy:
I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.
There’s a lot that needs doing, and fixing, in this country. So while I hope the candidate I voted for wins, whoever it is, he will be my president and I hope he does a good job.