Earlier this week, MSNBC’s science editor, Alan Boyle, posted an article on the MSNBC website showing how plant and animal life on Mt. St. Helens has responded vigorously and positively to the volcanic eruption 30 years ago. For example, most of the area’s amphibian species survived the blast and are thriving. As Boyle puts it, […]
In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about a Jim Beam ad meant to sell hard liquor to young men. I wanted to share what happened when I tried to get on the Jim Beam website. Before letting you on its website, Jim Beam asks you to input your date of birth. If you are old enough […]
Jim Beam, maker of bourbon, has been doing a lot of wishful thinking in public. In an ad that Jim Beam has been blasting on ESPN sports talk radio for several months now, the deep-throated announcer describes how great it feels when “men get together for a cocktail, to talk sports…..” Doesn’t it seem a […]
I won’t be seeing the new Robin Hood until I can get it on Netflix, but people are talking about it now and I do want to get my three cents worth in. I will refrain from comment on the quality of this new Robin Hood, except to note that for my money, the Errol […]
I wonder if there is a single day left during the year in which we are not as a nation officially celebrating something. First we start with our national holidays such as Christmas, Independence Day, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, to which we add the holidays that were created to stimulate the retail economy, such as […]
Every week at least one article in the “Week in Review” section of the Sunday New York Times is completely devoid of content. These articles usually use a chatty tone to babble irrelevancies about one aspect of a news story that is supposed to reflect a trend or epitomize an idea. Yesterday, it was Roberta […]
Dan Yoder has a very insightful blog detailing the 10 reasons he plans to delete his Facebook account. I agree with every one of his rationales for abandoning Facebook, all of which have something to do with Facebook’s cavalier and entrepreneurial attitudes concerning privacy. But while I agree with everything Yoder says, I nevertheless do […]
Sometimes it seems as if there are only 10 or so different topics in the financial advice columns in the news media, and columnist after columnist keeps recycling variations of each. This small set of topics includes, for example, investing for retirement, social security strategies, diversification of assets, investing to avoid or reduce taxes, and […]
The other day I walked into one of the Starbucks on the Upper West side of Manhattan disconcerted and ashamed. Disconcerted, because the Internet in the apartment I was renting for a two-week working vacation was on the fritz, the owner was nowhere to be found and I had to send email documents to my […]
Last week I analyzed the solipsistic qualities of a billboard ad for eating peanuts by the National Peanut Board in which the protagonist (main character in a fiction) prefers speaking to his dog. As usual, when a company creates a character through an offbeat or weird trait, it is talking to a large, if sometimes […]