Friday, November 2, 2007

Friday random thoughts...

• Anyone who hasn't checked out the Grand Theatre art galleries really should. My stroll through while doing research for today's column was one of the most enjoyable hours I've had in a long time.

• Anyone who still supports the United States' use of waterboarding or who says it isn't torture, read this article from a former Master of the U.S. Navy survival school and then get back to me.

• There's something wrong with the justice system when some people get a third strike for relatively petty crimes and guys like this float in and out of jail for years. At least he's turned himself in for his most recent alleged crime.

• Will we learn from others' lessons?: In California, the land of plenty, water shortages seem like a temporary inconvenience, something that isn't really that serious. For this Tennessee town, it's a very real problem.

• If you believe the retailers, Thursday was the beginning of the Christmas holiday season. Happy shopping.

• Rep. Jerry McNerney is putting forward a much-needed reform to the estate tax -- for all the merits of the estate tax (I believe there are many) it shouldn't punish family farms and businesses. More on this one later.

• Calvin and Hobbes quote of the week: "Well, when you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day." "We spent our day looking under rocks in the creek." "I mean other people."

1 comment:

Erdos56 said...

Your link to Buy Nothing Day reminded me of a sort of existential pause that overtook me driving past the little dancing chili man on West Grant Line the other day. Here we are all trapped in tin cans burning flammable liquids, passing along through urban canyons of services, services, services. We exchange rag paper tokens that have no value except through agreement for imported dowhickies.

I was reminded of the Matrix. Where is the real world?