__ As a (marginal) folkie, I found this fascinating. From Wikipedia: Lcha Dodi (Hebrew: לכה דודי; also transliterated as Lecha Dodi, L’chah Dodi, Lekah Dodi, Lechah Dodi; Ashkenazic pronunciation: Lecho Dodi, Biblical: Lekhah Dhodhiy) is a Hebrew-language Jewish liturgical song recited Friday at dusk, usually at sundown, in synagogue to welcome Shabbat prior to the …
Re-Defining the Gun Argument
Ask yourself, punk: Do I feel lucky?… At some point, it seems, Americans became enamoured, even obsessed, with the idea that guns win arguments. Guns can certainly end arguments, including those held by damaged individuals with the voices in their heads, but rebuttal is not actually what guns were invented for. Guns are tools, dangerous …
Open Thread: Zeitgeist 2012
(h/t commentor PsiFighter37) __ And on a less elevated tone, Professor Krugman’s diagnosis of the DC zeitgeist and the “GOP’s Existential Crisis“: We are not having a debt crisis…. No, what we’re having is a political crisis, born of the fact that one of our two great political parties has reached the end of a …
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Hope for the Rest of Us
I tend to approach cooking the way I do nuclear physics — it’s a very important occupation that should be left to those who enjoy that kind of work. But the Smitten Kitchen slow-roasted tomatoes have enriched my life & that of the Spousal Unit, so there’s a cookbook on my Winter Solstice gift list …
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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Good News
(Pat Oliphant via GoComics.com — click link for full-sized image) __ Odds are the world won’t end a week from Friday, although some Repubs may wish it had. A ray of hope, for those of us in the 99%, from Bobby Caina Calvan at the Boston Globe: WASHINGTON — The Senate’s Democratic leadership announced committee …
We Have Much to Learn from the Inscrutable Chinese…
… or at least our home-grown Masters of the Universe think so. Bless the Washington Post‘s Harold Meyerson for being unpopularly honest about the “Lansing-Beijing Connection“: China has a problem: rising inequality. The gap between profits and wages is soaring. Although elements of the government have sought to boost workers’ incomes, they have been thwarted …
We Have Much to Learn from the Inscrutable Chinese…Post + Comments (47)
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: 12-12-12
__ __ By request. Apart from picking up those new Mayan calendars, what’s on the agenda this evening?