Davison online
The life and times of the world’s
most self-deluded online superstar
News & Commentary
Breakers from the shore
Is that a second wave I see on the horizon?
Georgia church with COVID-19 outbreak
Freedom of religion.
Super spreaders
Super spreaders are not well understood.
Marion County is reopening
Some people need direct evidence before they’ll believe something to be true. Maybe I do, too.
Sudoku
Like the universe is singing to us.
This answer I knew
Federal judge tells plaintiffs their First Amendment arguments have no chance. When even I know the answer before the case is adjudicated, it seems a lot like lawyers collecting fees from gullible plaintiffs.
Overruling the governor
I have no idea what the Oregon constitution says about this. So I looked it up.
The yo-yos
Open, close, open, close. Rinse and repeat. Oregon has yet to fully reopen, but if the rest of the world is any guide—there's a chance it isn't—we'll be closing back down before too long. In place after place, restrictions have been lifted only to be reimposed. The latest is France: Just one week after a third of French schoolchildren went back to...
America’s decline
The Financial Times(!) telling it like it is. Not exactly a left-wing hippy rag.
The medical war against COVID-19
Most drugs don't work, but a vaccine looks promising. With one notable exception, the war isn't going so well on the pharmaceutical front: Although scientists and stock markets have celebrated the approval for emergency use of remdesivir to treat COVID-19, a cure for the disease that has killed more than 312,000 people remains a long way off — and...
Essays
You’ve Got Mail: You’ve Got To Be Kidding
You've Got Mail isn't the worst romantic comedy I've ever seen, but somebody's got a screwy idea of love, and I don't think it's me. If anyone needs proof that bad screenwriting and directing outweight good costuming and set design, here you go. WARNING: This review may include spoilers! You've Got Mail continues director/screenwriter Nora Ephron's attempts to recapture the magic she created in When Harry Met Sally.... Sadly, Ephron appears to bereft of ideas since both...
College Notebook: Television and Food: Breakfast Cereal Commercials Aimed at Kids
Yes, I turned this in. I was on a deadline. Another "masterpiece" from the late '80s. It really goes without saying that if, as is the clear implication, the younger sibling could beat his or her elder at the competition of the day just because he or she took the time to munch down a bowl of Tony's Frosted Flakes ("They're great!"), not only would media watchdogs be much less concerned about the impact of breakfast cereal commercials aimed at kids, but the sales of Frosted...
College Notebook: Eat My Cornflakes
I wrote this back in college circa 1988 during my younger and dumber days. Well, younger anyway. I wouldn't publish these now except that my friend Dave thinks they're all right. I think Dave might have been "younger" then, too. Regardless, Cornflakes is about the steady decline of the country from the perspective of someone who remembers how it used to be. Clearly, that's not me, but lack of experience has never stopped me before, and it sure didn't here either. Once upon...
The Celestine Prophecy: The Mayans Did What?!?
Sure, it's an I-Can-Read book for the suspect and rather baffling Christian New Age movement. That doesn't mean there isn't some truth here, and let's face it, lots of people need I-Can-Read spiritual help. Of course that doesn't mean this incredibly dumb narrative is it. WARNING: This review may include spoilers! The Celestine Prophecy sports on its beautiful dust jacket one of the more compelling ideas for a story that has come down the pike in recent times: In the rain...