The Idea Blog

For all the “world is flat” hoo-hah, this talk takes a truthful and sobering view of the news we Americans get.

Talk about going out on top, Annika’s retirement comes as a complete surprise.
“Maybe it will be one of those head-fake retirements [like Michael's] or maybe she’s afraid of Lorena,” wondered my friend Rick Hall, who sent me the link minutes after it showed up on ESPN.com.
“Maybe,” I said, “or maybe she’s going to kick ass [...]

It’s just a matter of time.
One of the best and one of the worst things about the digital/internet/transparent age is that secrets can’t remain so, not for very long.
Eliiot Spitzer Roger Clemens Miley Cyrus Milli Vanilli. Hillary’s Bosnia trip Jeremiah Wright McCain’s wife’s private airplane.
Do I need to go on?
Now there’s news that Dove’s “real [...]

This news from Virginia Heffernan in the NY Times…
The O.E.D. - that’s the Oxford English Dictionary, sir - is no longer printed in either its 13+ volume or its two volume micro edition.
I quit the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1974 in order to re-join and make the “compact” version my free selection. I loved having all [...]

Perfect question for SNL.

John Paul Newport, in this morning’s Wall Street Journal online, says the drive is the primal progenitor of the game, and we mortal golfers just can’t escape it’s allure and majesty. “There’s nothing in golf — and very little in life generally — as deeply thrilling as knocking the bejeebers out of a golf ball [...]

“North Carolina has lost more than 26,000 jobs in furniture manufacturing since 2000. In the 1980s, about half the furniture sold in the U.S. was made in this state; employment shriveled 41% from 1990 to 2006.”
Thus begins one of the best pieces of reporting ever printed in Business North Carolina. For years I’ve complained to [...]

After posting the Ford pick-up photo, I came across this from Allan Sloan’s “The Deal” column in the current (May 12, 2008) Fortune:
“Had the Bush administration and Congress exhibited the wisdom and courage to slap a big honking gasoline tax on drivers after 9/11 - or even in 2006, when the President made his [...]

Pulled into the parking lot at my friendly blood lab this morning and felt my mid-sized car might be sucked into the vortex of this behemoth. Sometimes I think I’m living in a monster truck game.

Golf Digest’s nefarious travel editor and blogger rants like John Hawkins about the airlines’ losing a valuable piece of luggage. Click here to feel his pain.
“My colleague and another angry golfer (and frustrated traveler), John Hawkins, called me the other day. He flies Delta as often as I fly American. He told me he was [...]