Category Archives: Commentary

M&M Enterprises

5/22/2008 – 8:35 am

When I was a young man, I read (as every young person should) Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” a novel about the absurd bureaucracy of war and the misery it wreaks on those caught within it. The most absurd character in the book is Milo Minderbinder, who – at least initially – runs the mess hall. A […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, September 11th | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Things I Never Learned in School

5/15/2008 – 11:41 am

History question: In what year did an American woman first cast a vote for president? The standard answer is 1920, after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted suffrage to American women. But it’s wrong. The first presidential ballot was cast by a woman in the election of 1872. The woman, unsurprisingly, […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Electoral Politics | Comments (0)

Still Doubting?

5/8/2008 – 10:14 am

One of my more frequent and controversial topics of comment is peak oil. It was nine years ago this week that I first wrote of the phenomenon. For those of you who may have missed all those commentaries, here’s a quick recap. “Peak oil” is the term used to describe the situation that will occur […]

By floegel | Also posted in Energy, Global Warming, Oil, Peak Oil | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Symptoms

5/1/2008 – 8:31 am

Forgive me. Accept my apologies. For the first time in 11 years, I missed not one, but two weeks in a row. I was overtaken by events and in the midst of the overtaking, I realized this is a signature symptom, perhaps the signature symptom, of contemporary life. So I’m trying to fight against it, […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Economy | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Life From Above

4/24/2008 – 1:46 pm

I watched the houses and trees fade as if into a glass of milk as the airplane ascended into the cloud. I watched the whiteness grow brighter and brighter as we climbed through the bank and broke into the sunshine above. Then I turned back to my book, a collection of essays by Orhan Pamuk, […]

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The Luckiest Generation

4/17/2008 – 11:23 am

My father had just celebrated his 14th birthday and was sitting in a movie house in White Plains, New York watching “The Swiss Family Robinson.” The film stopped, the lights came on and a man walked down the aisle. Turning to face the audience, he said in a loud voice, “The war is over!” It […]

By floegel | Also posted in Economy, Global Warming | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Follow-Up Questions

4/10/2008 – 9:00 am

Before the New Hampshire primary, John McCain had his now-famous colloquy with a voter in which he said he doesn’t care if American troops are in Iraq for 100 years, provided those troops are not getting killed or wounded. There are a number of Republicans running around now, saying Mr. McCain never said that, but […]

By floegel | Also posted in Electoral Politics, Iraq Invasion | Tagged , , | Comments (1)