Author Archives: floegel

The Luxury of Vietnam

10/26/2006 – 8:42 am

“Iraqi Prime Minister Lambastes U.S.,” read the headline in Wednesday afternoon’s online edition of the Washington Post. Nouri al-Maliki was “lashing out” at U.S. policymakers for suggesting they might be working on a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Mr. Maliki said such timetables were the product of stateside Republican electioneering and had nothing to […]

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The Lies We Tell Ourselves

10/19/2006 – 11:15 am

The seventh and deciding game of the National League Championship Series is tonight. It’s hard for me not to be a baseball fan at this time of year, but my enthusiasm throughout the summer is not as sharp as it once was and the reason is steroids. Baseball players (and other athletes) have been using […]

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Still Falling

10/12/2006 – 12:48 pm

I began writing these commentaries 10 years and one week ago. These were originally audio files posted at soapbox.org and after five years morphed into what you see today, but that’s another story. I wasn’t going to note the passing of the decade, as I generally find anniversary journalism unedifying, but I started reading through […]

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The Big Schlep (Glossary Included)

10/5/2006 – 10:19 am

Monday was Yom Kippur, the annual Jewish day of repentance. A Jewish friend once told me, “Catholics are lucky. You can go to confession and get absolved of your sins any time you want. Jews only get the chance once a year. It’s a big schlep.” (Schlep: verb, to carry, lug – Yiddish.) I responded […]

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The Road to Hell

9/28/2006 – 11:25 am

People often speak of the pavement on the road to hell, rarely about the traffic. These days, that particular avenue is gridlocked with American cars. Big, stupid, gas-guzzling American cars. Global warming, a terrestrial version of hell 150 years in the making, is sore upon us. Here in the nation that contributes more to global […]

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Equinox in the Balance

9/21/2006 – 1:48 pm

Happy equinox. Right on schedule, the temperature dipped in Vermont last night. One of the sugar maples in my back yard is turning bright orange, either as a sign of the season or a reaction to stress from global warming. Is the tree half green or half orange? Autumn in Vermont is a season of […]

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Sorry About the Numbers

9/14/2006 – 7:42 am

I’d like to apologize up front for all the numbers that follow, for two reasons. One, because I try to keep these commentaries are more entertaining than a math problem and two, because the message they carry is so depressing. The numbers are from an article in the 21 Aug edition of Oil and Gas […]

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