Yearly Archives: 2006

Whither Peak Oil?

12/28/2006 – 11:39 am

If you’re a long time reader of these commentaries, you may have noticed the recurrence of a limited repertoire of subjects – the Iraq war, global warming, the evisceration of civil liberties in the U.S. and peak oil. As detrimental as I believe the administration of George W. Bush has been to life on [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Energy, Oil, Peak Oil | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Christmas, As We Grow Older

12/21/2006 – 10:50 am

I suppose a bit of melancholy is appropriate to the dark, bleak days of December. That, and the solstice, are probably the reason the ancients decided to celebrate the Yule holiday when they did; with wisdom born millennia before the invention of psychology or the identification of Seasonal Affective Disorder, they knew we’d need [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

The Toothpaste Smuggler

12/14/2006 – 10:27 am

I’ll admit it; I’m a criminal of the modern age, a subversive in the Global War of Terror. I smuggle toothpaste.
My work requires me to fly every five or six weeks. After last summer’s “liquid bomb scare” in the UK, travelers have been prohibited from carrying any but the smallest amounts of liquids [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

My Mother’s Data Set

12/7/2006 – 11:15 am

On a December Saturday in the mid-60s – I must have been five or six – my parents took my brother and me for a walk in Seneca Park in Rochester, New York. Due to a freak warm spell, the weather was in the 70s and we were all wearing shorts. “Remember this,” [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Borat: Not Funny

11/30/2006 – 10:33 am

Last weekend, despite misgivings, I shelled out $7.75 and saw “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” A mockumentary, the film purports to follow Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev as he travels across the U.S., hoping to learn enough to propel Kazakhstan from second to first world status.
Reviews, both published [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)

Thanks/No, Thanks

11/23/2006 – 9:49 am

It’s time to bow our heads and give thanks for the good things we’ve received in 2006 and in anticipation of good things to come in 2007. Gratitude is an underused muscle in my psychological anatomy, but I’ve come to understand there is no blessing without burden and (gratefully) the same holds true in [...]

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Breathing Easier

11/16/2006 – 1:43 pm

Nothing brings back the past as powerfully as the scents we inhale. This is not a new idea; Marcel Proust hammered it home in seven volumes. Walking along a darkening street in the late afternoon with the aroma of dry leaves in the cold air adjusts my metaphysical clock as surely as “falling [...]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)