The Price of Art

According to the PewResearchCenter, support for public libraries banning books is at its lowest levels in 20 years.  Amazingly, this lowest level of support represents 46% of Americans.  That is, nearly half of all Americans supposedly support public libraries banning books they deem as containing “dangerous ideas”.
For obvious reasons, I don’t support the banning of [...]

Do They All Die? 9: Once

Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote, if my memory serves me, in his story White Nights, that all a man really needs in his life are moments. Dostoevsky may have just said “a moment”, but the point he makes is this: the most important things–the only important things–in life, are those brief, fleeting times of perfect joy. [...]

Especially You, Hedonism Bot! 3: Festina Peche

I had not, before this summer, even heard of a Berliner Weisse.  Mrs Thursday and I, however, found ourselves hungry in downtown Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and upon electing to go to the excellent Nodding Head Pub, I found myself drinking my first BW–their Ich Bin Ein Berliner Weisse.  Shortly thereafter, I came across [...]

Where You See Lions: An Introduction

Habari!
Why wouldn’t a person choose to spend nine weeks of their life without electricity, without running water, 7200 miles from home, living with a polygamist family who speak Kiluhya outside in their remote home in the village Shibuli, an hour’s travel from the closest “major” Kenyan city, Kakamega? I will seek to answer these questions [...]

Self-Help 4: The Rockstar

The wait is over!
Introduction
Here it is, the how-to guide to becoming a rockstar. Surprisingly enough, being a rockstar has significantly more subtleties than being either a pirate or a ninja, so pay close attention you Slash/Steven Tyler/Gene Simmons wannabe’s.
The reason that it’s so much more difficult to fully engulf oneself into the rockstar mentality/lifestyle/degree of [...]

Do They All Die?: “The Elephant Man”

TC is cracking the whip now that he’s decided to blog again. This is all well and good except back at the ranch, my mother is also cracking the whip. From when my eyes open at 8:00 AM, there are a thousand things to do and none of them feature me at a computer writing [...]

Especially You, Hedonism Bot! Don De Dieu.

Our first forays into Good Beer were through Mama and Papa Thursday. Mama drinks mostly wine, but enjoys an occasional Amstel Light. Pops enjoys Miller Genuine Draft, though before that there was, I believe, George Killian’s Irish Red, and before that, Moosehead. One day–I don’t recall if it a birthday, or holiday, or anniversary, Pops [...]

Especially You, Hedonism Bot! An Introduction.

There is an episode of Futurama in which it is determined that all the robots of the world are responsible for global warming, and that they must be destroyed or Earth will, ya know, fry.  The robots are tricked into coming to a big robots-only party on the Galapagos Islands, and, somehow, only Bender has [...]