The Many and the Few is a Woody Guthrie song that tells the Chanukkah story. It has been covered by The Klezmatics. It is also a great reminder of how different a song can be when it’s done by different artists. The arrangements are different, but seemingly not that different. Woody Guthrie performs the song…
The midterm elections are coming this fall. Do you know what that means? It’s pandering season. It happens every election cycle. You can set your clock to it. Politicians of all stripes are tripping over themselves to do things. That might sound nice, but it’s not. They aren’t doing things that need to get done….
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to publish a book, traditionally and independently. Traditionally is probably what you think of when thinking about how a book comes to market. The author submits a manuscript to an agent or a publisher (Penguin, Houghton-Mifflin, Scholastic, etc.). If the agent likes it, they can shop it to the…
Socialism is all the rage on the left side of the political spectrum. With Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s recent primary win and Bernie Sanders’ surprising primary challenge in 2016, the socialists are now the coolest cats at the party. The traditional Democrats get vilified and branded with the neoliberal slur. It’s all very smug. But I don’t…
I, like many people, go grocery shopping weekly. For years, I’ve spent $60ish each week to feed myself, my kid, and supply my home. I went grocery shopping yesterday and it totaled over $100. I didn’t buy more than usual or anything unusual. It was my normal $60 trip except I had to pay an…
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge philosophy geek. I love grappling with the questions and seeing what other people think about the questions. Some of it is really literary. It can be a thrilling read. But I also think of philosophy as a practical endeavor. I think it’s important to know why…
Baseball is my favorite sport. I could watch a baseball game any time and be relatively happy. It doesn’t even have to be my team, as long as it’s baseball. It puzzles me that the people who are supposed to be promoting the game don’t seem to agree with me. The commissioner of Major League…
I was walking past the park on the corner of Russ Street and Putnam Street with my coworkers. We go on a walk once a day or so for the exercise and to take a break from work. We were talking, and one of my coworkers looked into the park and pointed. “Uh, guys?” she…
I was talking to my brother the other night. He was telling me about a podcast he had listened to where the woman who talks about music always makes the same complaint when she doesn’t like something. She says it’s too simple. Ironically, she loves Bruce Springsteen, and it doesn’t get much simpler than Springsteen’s…
Today was a weird day at IOP. To start with, I was the fourth one there. Fourth! I never use exclamation points, but fourth? Come on. What’s wrong with me? Fourth! Check-in was fairly normal. I talked about my weekend. It was a nice weekend. Spent it with my partner. We went to a sugar…
