By Kevin | April 12, 2009
A few choice bits about $$ from The Oxford Book of Money, edited by Kevin Jackson. Appropriate, given the still-fragile economy. Many people continue to be worried. Here are a few historical justifications for such worry.
“It is more easy to write on money than to obtain it; and those who gain it, jest much at [...]
If you are in DC this weekend, you have to go see Richard Avedon: Portraits of Power at the Corcoran before it closes this Sunday, the 25. It’s well worth the two-for-one $14 admission fee.
The exhibit is organized chronologically and excludes the nearly surreal Avedon portraits I’m familiar with. Instead, focusing on artists, activists, [...]
I hesitate to comment on a book I haven’t read, but this one has really thrown me for a loop. Danica McKellar, of the Wonder Years, has written a math book for teen-age girls. While the book’s jacket cover certainly exaggerates when it calls her a mathematician, McKellar does hold a undergraduate degree in math [...]
By James | December 14, 2008
I was in the DC Metropolitan region this weekend visiting my parents, and we decided to take a trip to the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. I hadn’t been there for ages and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.
A lot of the exhibits were the same ones I remember form my childhood, only now [...]
They’re the quintessential holiday food. There’s even a song about it. And although I’d never tasted them in my life, when I heard a short piece about chestnuts on local radio my mind managed to fill in the gaps with a completely fabricated sense memory of something vaguely nutty and pleasant. This fictive flavor carried [...]
By Kevin | December 8, 2008
So, it’s heartening to see that people are now actively thinking of ways to make the country better now that we all hang on the precipice. There are rumblings of the specifics of Obama’s infrastructural boom, have been anxious meetings about “ready to go” projects, and talk of re-training and re-aligning the labor of failing [...]
By James | December 6, 2008
Firstly, apologies for neglecting to post last week. I think that’s two I’ve missed in the past month, but I had a rather busy Thanksgiving.
I want to talk a little about this article in Sunday’s Washington Post, about how some people are criticizing President-elect Obama for bringing in so many people who are products of [...]
By James | November 22, 2008
This is an interesting report. According to the National Intelligence Council, US influence in world affairs will most likely decline in the coming decades. This isn’t terribly earth-shattering; history is rife with examples of failed empires (the Dutch and Portuguese, to name two). I am somewhat surprised that it’s being admitted so [...]
I was reminded yesterday of an interesting piece of human biology I learned as an undergrad. First, some background:
The gene responsible for Sickle-cell anemia is the poster child of balancing selection. In areas where malaria is common, individuals with one sickle-cell version of the gene and one ‘normal’ version are less susceptible to malarial infection than [...]