In writing the previous entry I was delighted to find that the New York Times has an option for permanent links to its articles - that is, links or “permalinks” that do not expire or require the user to access a restricted archive. This is something I’ve wanted from newspapers, and according to The Next Net, the Times started doing so at the end of last year (2006). With Times articles, click on “Share” near the beginning or top of the article on that page (on the right), then “Permalink,” and you’ll have the link you want. The Times even has this cool “link generator” for finding permalinks to its articles.

From what I can tell, the StarTribune, the principal newspaper here in the Upper Midwest, does not have permalinks for its articles. For example, when I wrote about a biofuels study in an entry a few weeks ago, I linked to a Dec. 7 StarTribune article on biofuels. When I click on the link for the latter now, I get this “file not found” message: Read the rest of this entry »

Christopher Tassava, who creates the impressive Northfield blog “Blowing and Drifting,” directed me to this interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times, “The City that Never Walks,” by Robert Sullivan. Sullivan is disappointed that New York City is becoming more dependent on autos for transportation, a trend that is counter to what is happening in many cities.

Here are some choice excerpts: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been surprised to note more calls for raising the gas tax here in the U.S. See, for example, recent columns from Steve Chapman and Charles Krauthammer. Now what’s the chance of this tax increase happening, as useful as it would be? Probably not great. There would be short-term pain and long-term gain, but it’s the former that runs our politics.

President George W. Bush gave his state of the union speech last night, and I was both surprised and not surprised by its contents. I was somewhat surprised by the opening, which was conciliatory toward the Democrats - including an acknowledgment of Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker of the House. The president also expressed hope for the recovery of Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, whose ill health could lead to a return to Republican control of the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »

When President Bush spoke to the nation last week about his new plan for Iraq, which includes a “surge” of approximately 20,000 more troops to that country, I was aware of how warily I listened to his words. He is an effective speaker in such scripted situations, and I understand why many would be influenced by his urgent and sincere tone. However, I have learned too much about this man and his administration over the last six years to listen with much credulity. As he spoke, I kept asking myself, “Why should I believe you?” I expect that I’m one of millions who asked that same question.

After the Iraq Study Group released their report in December, I hoped that the Bush administration would adopt its recommendations. When Bush distanced himself from the report and said that he would announce his plan later, I suspected that he wanted some time to elapse so that our entertainment-distracted populace would forget the report and its grave findings (if it had paid any attention at all to them in the first place).

And so we were presented with the surge plan. Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker recently described the Iraq War in this way: “a four-year journey from shock and awe through stay the course to surge and pray.” Those last three words capture nicely the desperation and ineptitude that characterizes U.S. leadership of the war in Iraq. The plan seems unlikely to succeed, as another New Yorker writer, Steve Coll, has argued in a strong essay.

Surge and pray. I’ll pray for the Iraqi people and for the coalition troops there, but I’ll also pray that the U.S. Congress stops Bush’s plan from being implemented and forces the country to take a different course in Iraq.

Paul Douglas, the senior meteorologist at the WCCO television in the Twin Cities, continues to impress me with his scientific take on global warming. See his comments on last year’s weather and warming trends in his StarTribune weather column today:

Wednesday will be the 34th day in a row of above average temperatures in the Twin Cities. The last 3 weeks of December ran 17 degrees above average in the metro area, a premature taste of March in January. The NCDC, the National Climatic Data Center, just announced that December was the warmest on record for Minnesota and 4 New England states…NCDC just revised their numbers and it now looks like 2006 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., edging out the previous record in 1998. The data comes from a network of 1200+ climate stations around the nation, all rural, to minimize the risk of warm air blowing in from nearby cities, tainting the data record. “The past 9 years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record,” according to NCDC. They add “the rate of warming has accelerated over the last 30 years, increasing globally since the mid 1970s at a rate approximately 3 times faster than the century-scale trend.” To paraphrase: it’s not a typical, cyclical blip. It’s a spike.

Warming is happening, and the culprit is likely created by us humans. Denial of this fact will lead to needless death and suffering. Let’s pin that reality on the conscience of anyone who advocates a do-nothing approach to global warming.

Our thermometer read 22 degrees (F) this morning, so I bundled up my daughter and myself and we biked in to her school. However, it felt colder than that outside. She weathered the ride fine in her trailer wearing her snowsuit and sitting under a blanket. I was generally OK too, wearing long underwear for the first time in a couple of weeks. My hands were fine in my mittens, but my toes, covered by a single layer of Smartwool dress socks and sitting inside hiking boots, were not. They’re still thawing out. Two layers on the toeses next time!

Over the weekend I saw some old friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.

One was a friend from my freshman year of college, when I attended the University of Chicago (I subsequently transferred to the University of Minnesota). He was in town for a job interview and earlier had located me via the Internet and this blog. We hadn’t talked in more than 20 years! My family and I went up to St. Paul and met with him on Saturday. It was wonderful to catch up and find that we had more in common than ever, including marriage and children within the last five years. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a great fan of Philip Larkin ever since I first read his work in a twentieth-century British poetry class in college twenty years ago. His work has been of lasting importance to me, and I’ve long thought he ranked among the best poets in the English language.

My high opinion of Larkin has been confirmed from time to time, as when I met Seamus Heaney following one of his poetry readings and asked him what he thought of Larkin’s poetry. “Pure music,” he replied simply.

Richard Bradford’s recent biography of Larkin, First Boredom, Then Fear: The Life of Philip Larkin (Peter Owen, 2005), also provides reinforcement for those who hold Larkin’s verse in great esteem. Larkin created “the twentieth century’s most outstanding body of English verse,” Bradford writes in the concluding sentence of his book. In the introduction he calls Larkin “a Dutch Master of modern verse and life” (p. 19) and later writes that his “poetic repertoire…is one of the finest of the twentieth century” (115). Bradford’s accomplished record as a scholar and critic - he has published a diverse array of books on topics ranging from John Milton to literary theory - make his praise that much more persuasive. Read the rest of this entry »