Our home in Beirut (near the Greek Orthodox part of town, which my wife swears was just a coincidence). If you look closely you can that our 4th floor landing was once a sniper’s nest. The bullet pock marks on the wall are outgoing (incoming can be found if you lean over and look down). It’s amazing (and sad) that…
I’m off to Beirut to see the missus, who has been there for a month already. Yes, Beirut, the Pearl of the Levant, The Paris of the East, Chicago by the Sea. Except for rolling blackouts, a near civil-war next door (in the country that imposed peace in Lebanon, naturally), and some burning issues in the city of Tripoli in…
Sad and yet strangely touching story about dementia and sociologist Irwin (not Erving) Goffman in the New York Times. Once as a cop I remember spending hours with a very nice and well dressed elderly man. He knew all his info except where he lived. I drove him around the neighborhood. I walked with him around the Monument Street Market…
I was looking on google earth and couldn’t help but notice a plane sitting in the middle of a playground in the Bushwick homes. “Cool,” I thought, “Must be fun for the kiddies. I like how it’s painting all kind of trippy colors. I gotta check it out, esse.” Then I went to street view and, of course, it wasn’t…
We did so in Iraq. Syria will probably be next. I’m not too confident about Egypt… but that wasn’t our fault. Still, shouldn’t we be more supporting of strong secularleaders? I’m not generally one to comment on geo-political religious issues. I’m not really religious, myself. But I do think it’s shame, and strange, that country by country, American presence seems…
Pulaski Day was our favorite day off from school, growing up in Illinois. Even then we knew it was special. From the Chicago Sun-Times: But why is Casimir Pulaski honored here rather than any other Polish war hero from the Revolutionary War? Because Pulaski is easier to pronounce than Kosciuszko. There you have it. Here in New York, Pulaski and…
For those who believe this whole “new media” thing isn’t simply part of liberal fiction and the socialist agenda, you can follow all my twats (that is what they’re called, right?) @petermoskos. Personally, I’m skeptical. I think Twitter is a plot to get us to believe global warming is real and everybody should have health care. What I doknow is…
Well the bastards burnt down my favorite movie theater in Athens. Perhaps in the big picture of cultural destruction, it doesn’t rank up there with the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, but man, those red seats were comfy. Supposedly the theater will be rebuilt. (And supposedly a train will once again connect Athens and Patras). Meanwhile minimum wage in…
Not me. But my father. And he died in 2008. Linda Hirshman seems to have a bone or two to pick. She writes in Salon.com: If any evidence of this [“warfare is the business of heterosexual men, the penetrators”] agenda were needed, the same person who created and defended the dreaded “don’t ask, don’t tell” — military sociologist Charles Moskos…
I hope everybody goes gaga when they find a nice new Victrola under the tree! [thanks to Bob]