English Rules

April 2005

Jason Harrod - Bright as You

April 28, 2005

With the release of "Bright as You," his second solo effort, Jason Harrod has clearly come into his own as a songwriter and as a musician. The album is a sweeping landscape of shadows and light, with richly textured melodies capturing moments of sorrow and exuberance. On "Messed Up Everywhere Blues," which isn't a blues song at all, Harrod in … Read more.

George W. Bush to Speak at Calvin College Commencement

April 21, 2005

I'm speechless. (official announcement) … Read more.

More on Freakonomics

April 16, 2005

Felix Salmon added an interesting comment to my recent entry, a review of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I thought I'd respond to it here, rather than in another commment. Here's what he wrote: The one thing the publishers have clearly done well is send out this book to any and every blogger out there -- normally with … Read more.

Take a Stanza - Proustian

April 15, 2005

It would have been too easy to choose the first stanza of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" for this month's verse: "April is the cruellest month…" Instead, I give to you a few lines of a poem by Edward Hirsch, an American poet, professor, and president of the Guggenheim Foundation. Here is the last stanza of the last poem in his … Read more.

FREAKONOMICS

April 12, 2005

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner It's not too often that I read the introduction, preface, or acknowledgements of a book. Rarer still are the times that I find these introductory materials as finely written and intriguing as the book itself. In fact, the only book in the last … Read more.

Signs and Wonders

April 9, 2005

"Signs" as in street signs or store signs; "Wonders" as in one wonders what the person who wrote that or painted that was thinking, or if the person was thinking at all. I took these photos while walking around downtown Grand Rapids the other day. … Read more.

Best Mixed Metaphor Ever

April 8, 2005

Tad Friend's article, "Secret Agent Man," in a recent issue of The New Yorker, has this great quote from Michael Ovitz, former head of Disney and Hollywood agent: I always viewed myself as the quarterback of a smoothly oiled football team, the playmaker. For some reason that struck me as the funniest thing I had read in a long time. … Read more.

Interesting Things - Virtual and Real

April 5, 2005

A friend recently asked how I find so many cool websites. I'd like to be able to take credit for sniffing them out myself, but almost all of them come from other bloggers who do all the legwork. I just track some of these blogs and keep an eye out for interesting things that they link to. So, here's my … Read more.

Yale Student Contracts Extended Metaphor Disease

April 1, 2005

In what scientists are calling the first text-to-human transmission of a virus, a Yale University student who goes by the name "Anotmas" has contracted the deadly Extended Metaphor Disease (EMD). Doctors for the afflicted student first discovered his condition after concerned friends alerted New Haven police to his plaintive cry for help in an online poetry forum: i DON'T GET … Read more.

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  • Thought I had to use tables for bottom-aligning some elements. Then remembered display:inline-block and the IE6 hasLayout hack. Beauty! — Thu, Nov 20 at 8:18 am
  • finished chapter 10 before 2 a.m. Not as bad as I thought. Now for my 5 hours of sleep... — Thu, Nov 20 at 1:39 am
  • It's gonna be a long, long night. — Wed, Nov 19 at 9:48 pm
  • What is it about Jackson Browne's "These Days" that makes every musician under the sun want to cover it? (don't get me wrong; I <3 it ... — Wed, Nov 19 at 11:59 am
  • I'd like to go on record as saying that I have no idea what the govt should or shouldn't do regarding the financial bailout. — Wed, Nov 19 at 7:09 am
  • Thanks, everyone, for jQuery plugin suggestions. anyone else have "must mentions" for Learning jQuery, 2nd ed.? — Mon, Nov 17 at 9:03 am

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Reading Now
  • Staggerford: A Novel
  • Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
  • unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters
  • Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Just Read
  • JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
  • The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence
  • The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
  • Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Facets)
On the Shelf
  • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)
  • Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  • Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
  • The Elephant Vanishes: Stories
  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversations with Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders

© Karl Swedberg

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Noteworthy Articles

This Math Whiz Called It for Obama Months Ago (NY Times)

In an election season of unlikely outcomes, Mr. Silver, 30, is perhaps the most unlikely media star to emerge...

Op-Ed Columnist: The Obama Agenda

Right now many commentators are urging Barack Obama to think small. Let?s hope he has the good sense to ignore their advice...

Obama for president (Anchorage Daily News)

Palin's rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand...

McCain's Non-Support for Troops and Veterans: The Master List

Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit...

Music & nightlife | A suburban mom's rock-star moment | Seattle Times Newspaper

Though Ketola has a reputation as a singer/songwriter in the Christian music community, she never expected that she'd leave her husband on their 17th anniversary, mind you, and take up with another man. On stage. In front of 20,000 people...

Make-Believe Maverick (Rolling Stone)

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty...

The Palins' un-American activities (Salon)

The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama's tenuous connection to graying, '60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins' connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies...

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes (New York Times)

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

Obama to Palin: 'Don't Mock the Constitution' | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

Sen. Barack Obama delivered an impassioned defense of the Constitution and the rights of terrorism suspects tonight, striking back at one of the biggest applause lines in Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech to the GOP convention...

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention - (Associated Press

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

State of the Art - New Nikon Holds a Secret - NYTimes.com

If you saw it just sitting there, you?d never guess that the new Nikon D90 is a mind-blowing, game-changing camera...

Captcha is broken - now what? (The Guardian)

Websites use Captchas in an attempt to disrupt the spam and malware economy - but they are not working...

Hoping It's Biden (New York Times)

Barack Obama has decided upon a vice-presidential running mate. And while I don't know who it is as I write, for the good of the country, I hope he picked Joe Biden...

The Candidate We Still Don?t Know (New York Times)

Most Americans still don't know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail "McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries' names wrong, forgets things he?s said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused." ...

Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America? (New York Times)

Mr. Stewart describes his job as "throwing spitballs" from the back of the room and points out that "The Daily Show" mandate is to entertain, not inform. Still, he and his writers have energetically tackled the big issues of the day...