Bookworm Room

I remember the floods and slides of 2005.  Significant parts of Marin were inundated with water.  One of my friends, an elderly lady, was homeless for almost a year (living in various friends’ houses) while her house was being repaired.  Harold Lezzeni’s house was under repair for four years, but it wasn’t a dilatory insurance [...]

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You have to meet Dan Cnossen, who found himself in the middle of an IED four months ago.  I won’t say much more.  Just go and check it out (with specific attention, perhaps, to the climbing wall incident on December 9, 2009).  What a truly admirable human being, although I think it must help that [...]

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It’s palette cleanser time.  This time I’m not whining about the political scene.  Instead, I’m leading to the stories of two brave people.  I’ll start with the more recent, less complicated story first.  Once upon a time there was a very pretty young lady who worked at a little coffee kiosk.  And once upon a [...]

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The year 2009 has been a trying year for many of us.  In our personal lives, the recession has hurt people’s jobs, diminished their savings, and placed enormous stresses on their day-to-day functions.  Nationally, watching the Democrats at work at home and abroad has provided us with all the thrills of watching a polar bear [...]

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Go to Tom Elia’s post, following the link, and then feel inspired for the rest of the day.

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There are some very special people out there.  This woman is one of those people.
Hat tip:  Brutally Honest, who saw it at Confederate Yankee, who found it at Argghhh!

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The Anchoress is right.  You’ll LOVE this video.

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A thrilling surprise awaits you here:

Hat tip:  Radio Patriot

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This is not a silly political slogan.  This is the real “yes, you can”:
Hat tip:  Earl

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I’m a nincompoop when it comes to learning languages.  My pronunciation is flawless, but my inability to grasp foreign language grammar structures (despite being quite adept at my own), coupled with my lazy memory, mean that, despite have studied myriad languages, I’ve never mastered any.
Daniel Tammet is a linquistic horse of a different color.  (And [...]

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The very first time I met Sol Shankman, at my wedding, many years ago, he told me that he’d walked the length of the California coast.  I didn’t realize that this wasn’t the only walking he’d done.  Nor did I know, when I saw him a few years ago for his 90th birthday, that he’s [...]

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Courage and a clear head.

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In the wake of Sarah Palin’s appearance on the national political scene, some Obama supporters made some pretty deranged statements about the Palin family decision to go ahead with a pregnancy when they knew that the baby would have Down Syndrome.  There was a lot of eugenics-type talk about the social utility of handicapped children [...]

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Read and be uplifted.

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You’ll see why if you watch this video.

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I think most of us watched Randy Pausch’s last lecture, delivered when he was retiring due to terminal cancer.  Although the cancer finally claimed Pausch, the messages about getting the most out of life, about living with joy and immediacy, linger on.  Charles Lipson, himself a teacher, concludes that Pausch not only taught life lessons, [...]

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Tony Snow, writing in 2005:
The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some cancer patients recover; some don’t. But the ordeal of facing your mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life. You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical power of love. You [...]

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Children are not fungible — you can’t lose one and just replace it with another. Nevertheless, no matter the tragedy, life goes on and sometimes it seems as if a greater force than mere human will is determining the outcome.

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It’s inspiring at two levels:  modern science and human decency.

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We went on Saturday to the Christmas concert given by the Grammy award winning San Francisco Boys Chorus.  It was an auditory delight. The SFBC doesn’t pretend to any PC Christmas white out, but instead, inundates you with truly beautiful Christmas and Christmas music.  This year’s program included Oh Holy Night, I Saw Three [...]

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Rather surprisingly, NPR picked up and did a nice job with the story of Bill Krissoff, the 60 year old man who enlisted in the Navy’s medical corp to honor his son, First Lt. Nathan Krissoff of Reno, Nev., who was killed in Iraq last year.

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I heard it from the Paragraph Farmer, who heard it from the PalmTree Pundit, who read this incredible story of sacrifice, nobility and generosity at CDR Salamander. It’s not going to be a big story nationwide, of course, because it’s not about being a victim, it’s about being a hero. Still, I feel [...]

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Americans like to talk about ecumenicalism, which is an idea that concerns itself with “establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions.” We in America have proven to be very good at it, so much so that we think nothing of little news stories about the rabbi giving a talk to his neighbor’s church, [...]

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It’s inspiring because of the human spirit, because of compassion, because of bravery, and because of the reaches of modern surgery.  Watch it and be impressed.

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As you may recall, I thought it was a mistake to stave and dehydrate Terri Schiavo to death.  We know so little about the human brain and, as long as her parents were cheerfully willing to care for her, I thought it was out and out murder to bar them from providing that care.
It’s been [...]

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