… when you’re in Washington, folks respond to every issue, every decision, every debate, no matter how important it is, with the same question: What does this mean for the next election? (Laughter.) What does it mean for your poll numbers? Is this good for the Democrats or good for the Republicans? Who won the news cycle?
President Obama, Pennsylvania Health Care Remarks.

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In general, women are considered stronger and more responsible than men are and their attitude to life is stable even in difficulties.

I didn’t say it—not this time, anyway—and hardly go searching for these difficult things.
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This post heralds a … lazier bitch. No, that’s not entirely true … but I am both a more tired bitch than when this blog started out, in 2004 … and am funneling more writing energy into, like, you know, real writing. God, I used to write here with such passion. And it’s true, there are periods in my life—it varies from month-to-month, for various and sundry medical reasons—when the flow of words just won’t quit. When I end posts more out of mercy to the reader than because I’ve run out of things to say.
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Narcissism, Disintegration, Suicidality & the Fall of the West: Part IV: “… our culture routinely overstimulates our children, which is a factor in such disparate problems as hyperactivity, precocious sexual behavior, and the sexualization of relationships … “

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“She was also planning to conduct two classes from space, including a tour of the spacecraft, called ‘The Ultimate Field Trip’”

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I’m surprised no one has mentioned, in all this flap about the iPad—and I have my own theories about that name, I think it was Steve’s, pardon me, Teh Steve’s idea, and no one wanted to disabuse him. I mean, we know this thing has been His baby, for a long time. If a problem with the name didn’t occur to him—would you want to be the one to tell him?

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It was J.D. Salinger who taught me how to write. Not the man, but a person who seemed perfectly real to me—Salinger’s startling gift to literature, these people, their human vitality—Seymour, the oldest of the Glass children. Buddy, his brother, reads aloud, as it were, the letter that comprises Seymour, Read the rest of this entry »

Nance writes today about the 50th anniversary, on February 1, of the Sit-in of The Greensboro Four …

… an historic event which, due to the media attention it received and the momentum it launched for desegregation, has been called the Dawn of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.

In my 12th year, my family moved from New England to Nashville, to various comic effects. One of my fellow students complained about my “put on Northern accent” Read the rest of this entry »