"Lantos had assumed his committee chairmanship [of the House Foreign Affairs Committee] just a year [ago], when Democrats retook control of Congress. He said then that in a sense his whole life had been a preparation for the job." A sad time for our representative Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, to pass away of cancer.

Am I just too old-fashioned or hippie? Some of these "money-saving" suggestions from NYT are great; others make me sad. Desert local retailers? Is this how globalization has trickled down to the average American?

We had a fine powder in the evening, but later after my clavichord jury it began to drizzle. The resulting slightly solidified surface of the powdery snow gave it the fascinating consistency of old cake frosting. It was the right color too.

leaf crunchers unite!

This is what makes video gamers relish wrecking and pedestrians crunch leaves underfoot in the fall. I could hardly put it better: "W.H. Auden once warned that poets make lousy politicians, because they're way too entranced by apocalyptic spectacle. I think he was right, but the truth is this poetic hunger exists in almost everyone. After a 40-hour week of sitting in a cubicle, shuffling Word documents and being robotically polite, any reasonable human needs some catharsis -- some full-body shock of the illicit. Full-bore destruction in video games serves the need admirably."

The TSA needs a copyeditor if it's started its own blog and can't figure out the difference between Everyday and Every Day.