Monthly Archives: July 2007

Excellence vs. competence

Posted on Tuesday, 31 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Via scribble, scribble, scribble…, Steve Gimbel deflates the proponents of a certain Objectivist: If you take the writings of Nietzsche and remove everything insightful, interesting, and funny, what’s left are the writings of Ayn Rand. These works are a narcotic … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy | Comments Off

Contemporary American Theater Festival, 2007

Posted on Monday, 30 July 2007 by David Gorsline

This year’s festival in Shepherdstown engages with the world in a big way—questioning the American Dream, taking two different trips to Gaza, and challenging current trends in criminal justice and social policy. Certain parties felt sufficiently threatened by certain of … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Theater | Comments Off

Shade-grown wheat?

Posted on Wednesday, 25 July 2007 by David Gorsline

A recent article in Scientific American caught my eye. It’s by Jerry Glover et al. of The Land Institute, a Kansas-based organization that is working to establish agriculture on the Great Plains that has both the stability of the prairie … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture | Comments Off

Sweet

Posted on Sunday, 22 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Terrence Rafferty previews Film Forum’s N.Y.C. Noir series, which kicks off with Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success: …the way [J.J.] Hunsecker drags the movie’s protagonist, an overeager press agent named Sidney Falco…, down into the ethical sewer with him … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Comments Off

IBWO spotted in Maryland

Posted on Saturday, 21 July 2007 by David Gorsline

…traveling about 65mph, riding on the back of a Toyota. It turns out that the state of Arkansas has issued a license plate with a design that features the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Hmm. Virginia has plate designs that feature Mallard and … Continue reading →

Posted in Birds and Birding | Comments Off

Scaffolding

Posted on Friday, 20 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Via Lifehacker, Steve Pavlina explains scaffolding as a means to establishing productivity habits. A personal productivity scaffold is like wearing braces. It’s a way to redirect your time and energy back onto the “straight” course and away from the crooked … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Development | Comments Off

Grim

Posted on Thursday, 19 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime sorts out the difference between “noir” and “hardboiled” for Matthew Baldwin. A noir story can be grim and suspenseful or grim and melancholy or grim and paranoid or grim and fatalistic—but it’s pretty much … Continue reading →

Posted in Prose Fiction | Comments Off

Another Sinner update

Posted on Wednesday, 18 July 2007 by David Gorsline

The playing space at Silver Spring Stage is much more intimate than the CenterStage, where RCP performs. The first row of seats is only a few feet away, at eye level, and is usually well-lit by the spill from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Backstage | Comments Off

Buchanan in bronze

Posted on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Candidates for a revised edition of Mondo DC, especially since the Squished Penny Museum has closed: Clay Risen visits ten of D.C.’s more obscure monuments. Needless to say, the Cuban American Friendship Urn is not of recent vintage. Originally located … Continue reading →

Posted in Local News | Comments Off

Black gold

Posted on Monday, 16 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Dan Charles visits Iowa farmland with soil scientist Lee Burras of Iowa State University. They discuss no-till farming, cover crops, and other organic farming practices as means of carbon sequestration—all of them ways that farmers can have a positive effect … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Climate Change | Comments Off

Form follows function

Posted on Sunday, 15 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Phil Patton previews new designs for hybrid and electric cars. Toyota is showing a spiffy 2-door concept car called the X that features a lot of glass.

Posted in Economics and Business, Energy Sources and Consumption | Comments Off

What year is this?

Posted on Thursday, 12 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Wow. I reset the background color in my browser to something other than white, so that I could check that a GIF that a graphic artist had sent me actually had a transparent background. And now I find that at … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Internet | Comments Off

A little creepy

Posted on Thursday, 12 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Today’s biology term is mycoheterotrophy, used to describe parasitic organisms, like this orchid, that rely on a fungus as intermediary to extract nutrients from a photosynthesizing plant. There is no direct connection between the epiphyte and the host plant.

Posted in Natural Sciences | Comments Off

Must try harder

Posted on Thursday, 12 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Scott Rosenberg points out that Facebook’s categories of friendship are useful if you’re nineteen years old, but not so much if you’re a grownup. Here are the possible answers to “How do you know [this friend]?” Lived together Worked together … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Internet | Comments Off

Bottle it up

Posted on Tuesday, 10 July 2007 by David Gorsline

Luís Gil explains why cork is a better choice for stoppering wine bottles than its synthetic alternatives. Some of his arguments are not persuasive, and amount to “we’ve always done it this way,” but consider: 6) Cork is a renewable … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Natural Sciences | Comments Off