Entries from February 2009

02/28/2009

Malled

Last weekend I went into unfriendly territory on a difficult mission; I went to the mall to get my watch battery replaced. When I was young, the mall and I were practically inseparable. I thought our love would stand the test of time and we’d be together forever. Sometime around my fortieth [...]

02/21/2009

Shaking the Money Tree

I don’t have to tell you that the economy is in bad shape; that’s the job of the talking heads on the TV news. Every half-hour the round-the-clock news drones come on to report that the economy is still in bad shape. If the economy was a broken-down car, the newscasters would be [...]

02/14/2009

How to Turn an Argument into a Fight

The difference between an argument and a fight is the difference between a border skirmish and a full-on invasion. An argument is the sort of impassioned discussion you see in the U.S Congress when it comes to hot-button topics like Bioethics, Campaign Finance Reform, and whose turn it is to pick up the check in [...]

02/07/2009

They’ve Got You Covered

The twentieth century had more than it’s share of dubious “innovations”; atomic weapons, the wonder bra and (of course) new Coke. The worst of the bunch, though, has to be twenty-four-seven wall-to-wall news coverage.
In the early days of television — when most of the sets were still pedal-powered — there were only three networks [...]