10 facts about the MOA
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My sister, who thinks she’s funny, shared with me this link to Mental Floss’s 10 Quick Facts about the Mall of America, suggesting that my partner and I get married in the chapel there. Hardy har har. Continue Reading
The Graveyard of Empires? Let’s hope so.
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December 3, 2009. Between the fall of the Roman Empire and 1945, Europe was convulsed by almost perpetual armed conflict.
Invasions across the marchlands of one fiefdom or another, crusades sent off to murder residents of other parts of the world, dynastic struggles, revolutions, imperial conquests, religious wars, civil wars, peasant uprisings, explosive arms races triggered by fantasies about striking a “balance of great powers” – virtually every form of mass violence one can think of, interrupted only by brief intervals of exhausted “peace.” Continue Reading
Jackal-heads and the holidays
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It’s been my fate and fortune to live next to a university campus. Bar-closing time poses problems, especially when it’s warm enough for open windows to air the noise and other fluid substances that drunk undergrads discharge on their way to somebody’s bed. My dog Bella has marked the campus turf as her own. Her hungry sniffer is always on high alert for rich rotten smells, and she’s something of a celebrity, the Big Dog on Campus who can attract a small crowd with a few wags of her tail. Continue Reading
Middle American Peace Process stalls again: Obama okays “natural expansion” of U.S. settlements on Indian land
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November 25, 2009. In yet another setback to the 222 year old Middle American Peace Process and the search for a permanent treaty between the United States and Native Americans, Barak Obama has apparently turned his back on earlier pledges to put an unconditional end to increased Euro-American settlements on Indian land.
Minnesota Mamaleh: Your baby, in the army?
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Veteran’s Day rolled around last week and incited a variety of emotions. Was anyone else’s Facebook news feed teaming with complaints about not having the day off? Hmm . . . For most of us, Veteran’s Day gave a moment of pause to reflect upon people whom we love, admire and respect for committing and sometimes sacrificing themselves for our country and for us.
Television shows age; Music remains timeless
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You know you’re getting older when the icons from your youth become – as Shakespeare so eloquently phrased it — food for worms.
I recollect my passing into middle adult hood quite clearly. It happened one spring afternoon in Columbia, South Carolina. Continue Reading
Interracial Marriage
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Imagine this scene: a brown boy and a white girl go to a restaurant. They are very nicely dressed, as it is their first wedding anniversary. They sit down for a nice dinner, an extravagance in a year marred by unemployment and high tuition bills. Continue Reading
Great Gaski, part 2; or, a tale of two emails
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Yesterday, in The Great Gaski; or, does Twila Brase still need to find a Democrat fretting about death panels? Bluestem explored claims made by Twila Brase in the Quist health care forum about whether Dr. John F. Gaski was a “registered Democrat”:
New eco-friendly Carleton dorms attract national attention
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These red brick buildings are green.
“It’s hard to tell it is so environmentally friendly, it just feels like a really nice dorm,” says Lauren Masterson, a Carleton College freshman and resident of Cassat Hall, one of two new recently completed dormitories getting rave reviews from residents.