Review: Critical

This is a broad overview of the state of American healthcare that is perfectly accessible to someone like myself that doesn’t have much background in the area.
Daschle starts off by rattling off statistic after tragedy after heartbreaking story of how American healthcare is unreliable, not comprehensive, and hugely over priced. He really drives home how [...]

Review: A Whole New Mind

Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind makes many excellent points. Unfortunately, it suffers from an awkward and unconvincing metaphorical framework.
Chapter 1: Right Brain Rising
Pink starts out explaining about the brain’s left and right hemispheres, and how each side is responsible for different cognitive activities – the left hemisphere tends to be responsible for sequential logic, [...]

RIP Splinter, Day 8

RIP Splinter, Day 8,
originally uploaded by suedoc.

I missed days 6 and 7, during which time there was a lot of heat and a lot of rain. Splinter is pretty much a pelt and some mush at this point.

RIP Splinter, Day 5

RIP Splinter, Day 5,
originally uploaded by suedoc.

I think there’s not much left now but skin and bones, literally. Not much has changed.
I’ve been told that my little photo project is sick, twisted, and disturbing. I don’t really see how, myself. Is it gross? Yes, definitely. But twisted? Things — animals — people — die all [...]

RIP Splinter, Day 4

RIP Splinter, Day 4,
originally uploaded by suedoc.

Well, it’s still identifiably a rat, but that’s about all you can say for it. There is a crushed Steel Reserve can right by his tail now, which I find slightly disturbing.
The body has been moved quite a bit — it’s moved a little every night. GK tells me [...]

RIP Splinter, day 3.

RIP Splinter, day 3., originally uploaded by suedoc.

In case you don’t obsessively check my flickr photostream (how could you not?!), I am on day 3 of photojournaling the decomposition of Splinter. Last night the body was moved, presumably by a stray cat. The flies are hard to work.
A new rat, somewhat smaller than ol’ Splinter, [...]

R.I.P. Splinter!!!

R.I.P. Splinter!!!,
originally uploaded by suedoc.

Splinter, our friendly neighborhood gravity-defying ninja rat, passed away last night under suspicious circumstances. I found him in the alley covered with flies this morning as I walked to the bus stop. It seems like just last week he was skittering across the backyard, scaling the brick wall of the apartment [...]

Review: Asylum (1972)

This is a documentary, of sorts, about crazy people. A small camera crew spent a few weeks in a psychiatrist’s experimental group home for, well, crazy people. The result is absolutely fascinating. There is basically no narrative — a few interjections from R.D. Laing, the psychiatrist whose work inspired this group home, and occasionally some [...]

On Literary Deal-Breakers; or, My Lack of Snobbery

The New York Times published a much-talked-about story a week or two ago titled “It’s Not You, it’s Your Books,” which talks about “deal-breaker” books — books that make their owners less attractive or downright undateable.
I’ve delayed writing about it until now because it wasn’t that obvious what books would give me second thoughts about [...]