News

$4 gasoline? The horror! Forget that Europe has been paying twice that and more per gallon forever. No, when US drivers feel pain at the pump, then everyone starts saying that the apocalypse has happened and the sky is falling. I think we can all see how, um, insular and self-centered such a worldview is. But it’s not the high price of gasoline that worries me. I’m worried about water. A story in today’s paper is Read more…

I’m kind of boggled at the mostly unfavorable reviewer response to Prince Caspian. K and I thought it was better than The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which we also loved, and A allowed that it was pretty good (high praise indeed coming from an almost-thirteen year old). So here’s why I liked it. They kept to the emotional truth of the story as well as following the plot. In the book, Caspian was Read more…

Today the Lis buried their daughter, a victim of the Chinese earthquake, and their grief is emblematic of an entire nation’s sorrow. China has played many roles lately, among them the oppressors of Tibet, deliverer of poisoned food and medicine, hosts of the pollution Olympics, and the most evocative, Beast from the East, but the face of the Lis and their words as they dressed their little girl for her funeral is the image that haunts me right now. Read more…