Self-Absorbed Boomer

"[A] delightfully named blog", (Sewell Chan, New York Times). "[R]elentlessly eclectic", (Gary, Iowa City). Taxing your attention span since 2005.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Put a laurel crown over Exit Nine.

As I've noted here before , Rutgers played in, and won, the first college football game ever. But it's taken them 137 years to get ...

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

A white post-Christmas

On Christmas day, there was no snow to be seen in far northern New York State, where we were visiting for the holiday. On the morning of th...

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Bulls are bowl victors.

A first for the young football program of my alma mater , South Florida: a bowl game win. They defeated East Carolina 24-7, largely by dint...

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Galactic greetings.

This Christmas tree light-like display is an image of one of our galaxy's centers of new star formation, called W3. It was made by Harv...

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

A heartwarming holiday story.

Mr. "You're fired!" shows his forgiving side, and Tara keeps her tiara. It's a wonderful life. 12.20 extry: The Daily Ne...

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Lagniappe

If you're not familiar with the word I've used to head this post, and there's no reason why you should be if you haven't spe...

Monday, December 11, 2006

Atlantic Avenue and the Yards controversy.

Atlantic Avenue has been called the Champs-Élysées of Brooklyn, an analogy that does neither thoroughfare any good. Atlantic is a broad bo...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Better late than never: joining the "speed of a meme" crowd.

A few days ago, I followed a link from Fray friend Hipparchia's blog Gun Tamga that led to another blog, Rough Theory , which belongs t...

Saturday, December 02, 2006

I wuz wrong! (But I'm glad.)

Gators win SEC. Meanwhile, Bruins stuff Trojans. So, will the Lords of BCS give the Gators a shot at the championship, or will Michigan ...

Friday, December 01, 2006

"Winter is icumen in, ...

... Lhude sing Goddam" -Ezra Pound This fall has been unusually mild, with temperatures here in New York typically topping off in the m...

Thursday, November 30, 2006

More views from Maine.

Lobster catchers tend their pots on Casco Bay on a pleasantly brisk November afternoon. It's been many years since the freight car on th...

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Almost enough to make me root for Arkansas this weekend.

MSNBC's Joey Johnston tells Florida fans what Brooklyn Dodger fans used to say to their Yankee-loving counterparts: Wait 'til next y...

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Genghis Khan: the first liberal?

Yes, there are other contenders. For example, I think a strong case could be made for Cyrus the Great . Nevertheless, consider this passag...

Monday, November 27, 2006

What does this blog have in common with a fan site for a three woman rock band from China?

Both include a photograph of the Merchant Marine Memorial (see here ). Free Time, who publishes the linked blog, was kind enough to quote mi...

Saturday, November 25, 2006

College football confusion.

I spent most of Friday watching games I didn't much care about, with the exception of Arkansas/LSU, about which I had mixed feelings. L...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I break holiday radio silence briefly ...

... to note that Mickey Kaus has attempted to explain something that has long puzzled me (indeed, I've posted about it here, but am too ...

Monday, November 20, 2006

A joyous Thanksgiving to all.

I'm taking a break from blogging for the next few days, in order to prepare for and enjoy the holiday (we'll be visiting friends in ...

Saturday, November 18, 2006

College football yuck!

Everything turns out as I feared it might ; i.e. Rutgers falls to Cincinatti and my USF Bulls get roughed up by Louisville. All I can hope f...

Friday, November 17, 2006

Another loss for the dismal science.

The year 2006 has seen the passing of two towering figures in economics, one, John Kenneth Galbraith, literally so, the other, Milton Fried...

Didn't get the memo?

Walking through Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, this morning, I spotted this bird calmly watching passers-by on the footpath...

The dark side of the Force.

A couple of years ago, NASA was ready to give up on the Hubble Space Telescope, apparently content to allow it to go dark. Now, there are p...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Well worth reading.

Keifus on a great kick .

The Irish Hunger Memorial

The Irish Hunger Memorial is in Battery Park City, on the west side of lower Manhattan. Approaching it from the southeast, one gets the im...

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Go West, by God!

Every once in a while I find a blog that's worth special mention, and the latest is The Goat Rope . El Cabrero serves up an irresistabl...

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Exit Nine divine! Rutgers a BCS contender?

Read it and believe . Well, the Scarlet Knights had tradition on their side. It's been 137 years and three days since they won the firs...

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Mandatory post-election comments.

The Bush press conference just ended. He handled it better than I expected. The cockiness and the smirk were gone, though the customary jo...

Monday, November 06, 2006

Color guard for a parade that wasn't.

This powerful Army Corps of Engineers tug, flying a plus-sized flag, was meant to lead the WW II veteran aircraft carrier Intrepid as she w...

Sunday, November 05, 2006

QM 2 again, The Bridge again, autumn flowers and kayaks on the East River.

Queen Mary 2 was back at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal today. The late afternoon sun highlighted her British Merchant Navy "red duster...

Saturday, November 04, 2006

College football quickie.

Florida gets by Vandy (I was cautionary about this), and wins SEC East with help from former victim LSU. My out-on-a-limb prediction is th...

Friday, November 03, 2006

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill retrospective.

Another Slate link well worth pursuing takes you to this slide show , compiled by Witold Rybczynski, which documents SOM's contribution...

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About Me

: I was born in 1946 in a city renowned in Vaudeville humor, Altoona Pennsylvania. My dad was in the military, so we moved many times in my childhood. We lived in rural England from the time I was five until I was eight, and I began my formal education in a county council school, where my being American is likely all that saved me from having my bottom caned. When I was eleven my father retired from the Air Force, and we settled in Tampa. I graduated from the University of South Florida (1967) and Harvard Law School (1970). Since then, apart from two years' active Army duty, I have lived in New York City; and have lived in the Borough of Brooklyn since 1983. In 1991 I married Martha Foley, an historian and archivist. We are proud of our daughter, Elizabeth, and our granddaughter, Ada, who also live in Brooklyn.

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