Bookworm Room

If you’re ever in Marin, don’t try the wild mushrooms: “Marin County has one of the world’s largest concentrations of one of the deadliest mushrooms in the world: Amanita phalloides,” said [Loraine] Berry, a Ross resident and founding member of the Mycological Society of San Francisco. That is a message I’ll take to heart (not [...]

4 Comments »

It’s been an incoherent day, one that never gave me the opportunity for contemplation and writing.  Instead, I’ve been bopping here and there, and dealing with one thing and another.  Nevertheless, I have been tracking the news, so I thought I’d just write up a mish-mash of thoughts about current issues and events. Gaza The [...]

6 Comments »

There are rallies planned around the country to support Israel.  One thing I’ll add is that supporting Israel means supporting ourselves too.  As is so often the case, Israel is our proxy in the bloody front lines against some of the most evil people in the world — in this case, the Iranian mullahs and [...]

No Comments »

I’m a dollar short and a day late, but I’m not cruel enough to deprive you of a list of the winners, placers and show-ers in last week’s vote over at the Watcher’s Council.  Every week I enjoy reading the submissions, but I have to say that last week’s submissions were especially strong.  If you [...]

No Comments »

Sadly, Hollywood isn’t only a mirror of culture but it’s also a cultural leader. During WWII, it took the lead in promoting American values and urging American victory. In the past decades, and with increasing energy in the current decade, Hollywood has taken the lead in hostility to American values and, in the war between [...]

11 Comments »

While the media has been vociferous in pointing out life under siege in Gaza, they ignore life under siege in Israel.  Because there’s less media coverage, there’s less footage, but this Power Point (from Lulu) gives something of an idea of life under a barage of between 3,000 to 5,000 rockets.  (In theory, clicking on [...]

25 Comments »

I like the way Drudge tends to snapshot trends.  Here’s an interesting one, considering the looming deficits federal, state and local governments face: What’s missing from the above list, of course, is CUTS.  Lawmakers are figuring out as hard and as fast as they can ways to drain more money from the taxpayers.  The one [...]

4 Comments »

Vacation is over and I’m back to my work schedule, which means no more morning blogging (not that I was very inspired in the morning during vacation).  Still, I had to share this gem with you. I spoke with a liberal friend yesterday, who is lukewarm about Israel, and he told me that Israel absolutely [...]

26 Comments »

In today’s WSJ, there’s an op-ed from Dianne Feinstein, urging Obama, when president, to shut down America’s nuclear arsenal.  To make her point, she opens with an anecdote about Ronald Reagan: When Barack Obama becomes America’s 44th president on Jan. 20, he should embrace the vision of a predecessor who declared: “We seek the total [...]

20 Comments »

The inimitable Mark Steyn: A couple of days after Hamas voted to restore crucifixion to the Holy Land, their patron in Teheran (and their primary source of “aid”) put in an appearance on British TV. As multicultural “balance” to Her Majesty The Queen’s traditional Christmas message, the TV network Channel 4 invited President Ahmadinejad to [...]

3 Comments »

Alan Dershowitz gives us some insights into the evil that is Hamas (and I use the word evil deliberately and without any artistic hyperbole), and then explains how, under international law, the concept of “proportionality” properly works in the face of that kind of evil.  Incidentally, it’s not far from my post from a couple [...]

10 Comments »