Countdown to Crisis

Follow our planet's slow roast at sites such as www.realclimate.org, the Global Change Google Group, or, of course, the 2000 election victor's www.climatecrisis.net. My friend Jared is also keeping a close eye on the crisis.

Earlier: How air conditioning cooks the planet

Stuff I Done Writed Lately

The Celebrity Factor (The Banner)

Worshipful Service (Perspectives)

Homecoming at LaSalle Street Church (Reformed Worship)

Ode to a Typewriter (Minds in the Making)

Read All About It

Calvin College has just issued a press release about my book (the tuition I paid them yields dividends).

Creativity Within A Rut



We NetFlixed the pilot of Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip, which premieres on NBC in September. Like anything written by Aaron Sorkin, it's superb--smart, snappy, substantive. It lacks the charm and dignity of West Wing, but sizzles with the same wit of Sports Night, in more or less the same setting. Which leads me to ask: can't a guy as bright as Sorkin write about anything else? In the last 10 years he's worked on a movie and show that go behind the scenes at the White House (American President and West Wing) and 2 shows that go behind the scenes of TV shows (Sports Night and Studio 60). Is that all there is to write about? Goodness knows we don't need a bazillionth hospital drama, but imagine what this guy could do with life in an airport, a home, a church, a foreign country--heck, even an insurance company. But we can only guess that Sorkin is dreaming up a future project with more White House and more TV -- let me guess, the life and times of a White House correspondent?

Happy Birthday Lisa! May next year find you in your adopted homeland. And so, in lieu of singing "Happy Birthday":

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux
...

My stance? Pro-brain

Moping this morning over the millimeter-margin defeat of former Paul Henry aide Chris Meyer (whom many describe as Henry-esque) in his state legislature primary, I'm newly distraught at the misuse of power by the local Right to Life, which cynically shafted Chris for being insufficiently extreme in his pro-life stance, presumably costing him the election (see "Pro-life endorsement inequity" 7/31 here), and by the lemming-like voters here in West Michigan who do whatever RTL says.

(A friend of mine noted that the first bullet item on a campaign pamphlet for a local drain commissioner candidate said that he was pro-life. It's important to have a pro-life drain commissioner!) (More here)

I'm reminded of a line Adlai Stevenson supposedly said during one of his campaigns in the 50s, when a supporter told him, "Mr. Stevenson, you have the support of every thinking American."

"That will not do," Stevenson said. "I need a majority."

'We're cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that's still habitable'

A/C D.C.
The deluded world of air conditioning
By William Saletan
Slate

Site to See: SongMeanings.net

www.songmeanings.net

Whether they're half-baked, insightful, vulgar, ridiculous, or all four, these explanations of what the heck a song is talking about are worth checking out, especially when you find yourself singing heartily along to a song without a clue about what you're singing. For example, I learned that Dave Matthews' "Don't Drink the Water" is about white settlement of North America and the (ahem) displacement of Native Americans. (and even if it's not, you could totally get away with that on a history test...) (One caveat: don't buy anything they say about U2 without checking it with Dr. Bob K. first...)

From the Onion:

"Area Beehive Not Ready For Democracy"

A.O. Scott in the NY Times:

The case requires elaborate cover, buckets of money and the finest, fastest air and sea vessels the taxpayers of Miami can afford. Not really, of course. The actual operating budget for the Miami police department in fiscal year 2005 was around $100 million, a good $50 million less than the reported production costs of “Miami Vice.”