Archive for January, 2009
It’s been just over a year since I launched the Weekly Carboholic in late 2008, and I had grand plans to write up something special to mark the anniversary and the new year. Instead I took three weeks off from writing the Carbo and dumped my time into writing about the Tennessee Valley Authority’s coal ash sludge spill. But we’re back as of this week, although we may be a little hit-and-miss through February. Full story »
The second in a five-part series examining the impacts of NY State’s recent tax hike on cigarettes
by Alex Cole
photo by Talbot Eckweiler Jeff Jones stumbles out of bed at five o’clock in the morning, longing for that first jolt of nicotine.
He slams his palm against the top of his blaring alarm clock and throws on a pair of sweats. Creeping through the darkness, he blindly reaches for the essentials.
Keys? Check.
St. Bonaventure School ID? Check.
Cigarettes? Check.
Money? Not quite.
The cigarettes and the money aren’t mutually exclusive. Taxes increase. Prices increase. Taxes increase even more. Prices increase even more.
But any price is worth the taste of tobacco in the morning. Full story »
 I don’t know if there’s a good guy in the Gaza Strip travesty; if there is one, it sure isn’t young Mr. Bush, or Lord Cheney, or Keystone Kondi Rice, or, lamentably, Barack Obama, and it sure as h-e-double hockey sticks isn’t Israel.
Speaking of perdition, somebody needs to throw another handful of clean coal in the brazier under Yasser Arafat, and hopefully someone has confirmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s reservation for the spot next to Arafat’s. Bush and Kondi and Lord Cheney and Bad Will Ambassador John Bolton must be looking forward to occupying adjoining rooms with a view of the inferno in the LBJ Hilton, because they appear bent on squeezing in as much last minute evil as they can before a house drops on them. Full story »
 Most years are pretty good for music if you know where to look, and 2008 was no exception. It’s a shame that you have to search so hard, of course – once upon a time all you needed to keep track of what was good in the world of music was a radio. These days it requires a little effort, though, and while I lost count a long time ago, I probably sampled a few hundred CDs in the last 365. Thank the gods for the Internet and a growing network of friends who make sure to let me know whenever they hear something worthy, huh?
This is part one of three. The Platinum LP Awards will be along soon, and that will be followed by the CD of the Year post. So here we go with last year’s Gold Awards for Very Good CDs. These are in alphabetical order, more or less. Band Web sites link to the band name, and if the CD is available via eMusic, that links to the CD title. If you want to purchase from eMusic, click on the link in the right column for a really good deal (as in lots of free downloads).
juxtapost (v. t.) to inadvertently post two somehow related headlines next to each other
“Gaza hospital overwhelmed by dead, wounded”
“Bush family mourns death of 18-year-old White House cat”
After all, they don’t even know all those Palestinians.
“The impact of the death of a child”
“For stress reduction, just say ommm”
Dead kid? Just skip to the second story, folks.
“More than half of U.S. cyclists forgo helmets: report”
“Social Security overestimates death rates: study”
Probably not the death rate among cyclists.
sources: Yahoo News, CNN.com Health, Reuters.com
 Today is the last day of voting! Please vote for us. Also, a climate-denying blog is presently leading for “best Science blog” when its content is hardly scientific. Please go here and vote for Pharyngula.
It’s true. Scholars & Rogues has been nominated (again) for a 2008 Weblog Award in the Midsize Blog category. We’re not sure who nominated us or why, but we’re gratified and honored, to be sure. But what we’d really like is to win. Especially given the quality of the competition. Full story »
photo by Talbot Eckweiler The first in a five-part series examining the impacts of NY State’s recent tax hike on cigarettes
by Alex Cole
Smoking in New York State isn’t as easy as it used to be. Just ask Jill from Olean.
She smokes a pack and a half of cigarettes every day. Sometimes even more if stress stirs her up. And it’s harder to afford each year.
Jill’s small apartment rests on the corner of a street in Western New York. Waves of smoke and ash loom in the air, rushing to the nostrils and blocking out other scents. Thick chips of paint crumble off the building’s exterior. Pay no mind to the cigarette butts scattered across the lawn.
The flickering light on her aged porch illuminates her pacing profile. She turns and smiles.
“I’ll be done in just a minute,” Jill says. “Hold on.” Full story »
 Douglas Fir and Snow Full story »
 Link of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link)
Warren Strobel, McCatchy’s Nukes & Spooks, blogging from Tehran:
. . . rumors are running rife in Tehran’s huge central bazaar that the United States is on the verge of establishing some sort of diplomatic office in Iran for the first time since shortly after Iran’s 1979 revolution. That would probably cause a mass stampede, since half of Tehran seems to have a relative in the United States, and even many that don’t would love to have a U.S. visa. Full story »
Orcs by Stan Nicholls is too much of a good thing. Perhaps because the book is a promotional tool as much as a literary experience.
 Orcs contains three of Nicholls’ novels, Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder, and Warriors of the Tempest, packaged together into a handsome bundle that’s currently being pushed at the major book chains in advance of the 2009 release of Nicholls’ next round of Orc books. Orcs also contains a short story that serves as a prequel to the novels, plus a lengthy author interview.
My plan was to read one of the three novels in the omnibus, go on to something else, then come back to the other pieces at some undetermined point in the future.
The Orcs had other ideas.
Full story »
 At Cabot Cove near where I grew up in western New England, the Millers River meets the Connecticut. The Iron Bridge Co. of Canton, Ohio, erected a one-lane bridge over the Millers in 1898 for $7,000 — or so an old plaque on the cross-beam over the western end used to proclaim. Standing on the bridge, you can see the Connecticut rush by 100 yards downstream of the bridge. In spring, the Connecticut sweeps the surging effluent of the Millers to the south and eventually inhales it, adding the silt of the Millers to its own.
The bridge connects East Mineral Road in Montague to River Road in Northfield. It’s no marvel — just a turn-of-the-century, strut-and-truss iron bridge with a paved roadway. Montague had the bridge inspected in 1989. The engineers from the state said the abutments – then made of stone — were unsafe. They had begun to shift and collapse, the engineers warned. The town closed the bridge, saying it could not afford to pay $100,000 to repair it, given how little vehicle traffic crossed the bridge. Years later, the bridge was modestly renovated as a pedestrian river crossing.
I think of 1988 as the year I left home. That’s the year I screwed up the nerve to leave the newspaper and go to graduate school at Evergreen, sight unseen. Whenever I return home, I visit this bridge. I love this bridge, but I can’t explain why. I only know that I am irrevocably connected to the bridge, and it is irrevocably connected to me.
Full story »
 New Leaf I rather like what Oscar Wilde is said to have uttered about good resolutions being simply checks that men draw on a bank where there is no account.
Full story »
“Hamas. … deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people. … This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.” [Emphasis added.]
We’re all familiar with this argument, made in this case by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post today. You often hear it from those who reflexively support Israeli offensives, as well as conservatives in general on the subject of urban warfare. Full story »
 In 1977, former president Richard Nixon offered up some interesting thoughts on the concept of legality.
FROST: So what in a sense, you’re saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
FROST: By definition. Full story »
 One-hundred and forty-six years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Emancipation Proclamation.
While Lincoln’s intent was unmistakably noble—and incredibly politically shrewd—the words of the Proclamation appear to be among the most inelegant words Lincoln ever wrote.
Although it’s frequently misconstrued as the document that freed the slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single person. Based on Lincoln’s powers as commander in chief, the proclamation freed slaves only in areas that were in rebellion—in others words, only in the Confederacy. Lincoln had no way to enforce the proclamation except through military victories (and on January 1, 1863, his armies weren’t doing so hot). Full story »
 The holidays began this year sometime around the ides of November, with a surprise in the mailbox: a birthday card addressed to me in my younger brother’s wretched handwriting. After the obligatory “older than I am” joke, he had written:
You’re old, old, old, old, old. And crazy.
Love, Jason
Full story »
 I’m continually appalled, although no longer surprised, by what both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (“the conflict” from now on) are willing to do. Islamic Jihad sends a suicide bomber and blows up a bus loaded with Israelis who’s only crime is being Israeli – Israel bulldozes the bomber’s family’s home. Israeli special forces assassinate a leader of Hamas – Hamas responds with Katyusha rockets launched willy-nilly at Israeli towns. Hezbollah kidnaps Israeli soldiers – Israel invades Lebanon and cluster bombs on entire Lebanese villages.
It’s been going on for so long now that we can’t even assign blame anymore. I got pull-off-the-road-and-calm-down furious on Monday when, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered Monday afternoon, a Gaza politician claimed that either a) Israeli collaborators had launched the rockets into Israel as a pretext or b) there had been no launches at all and Israel was faking the whole thing. And I got just as furious this morning when I the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. refused to admit that Israeli commandos had been assassinating Hamas leaders during the cease fire in yet another NPR interview.
Hammurabi came up with the first written code of laws – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And the result of following that law is that Israelis and Palestinians have each become toothless, blind, deaf, mute, and stupid. Full story »
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