Weekend Wonk
H2O II
Jerome Shea October 7, 2007
So tap water, as I said last week, got a bum rap. Even for many who drink water from the kitchen faucet, a very lucrative industry of home water filters has sprung up. Don’t drink the water until you have tortured it to a fare-thee-well, shriven it of its chemical sins. Ironically, much bottled …
H2O
Jerome Shea September 29, 2007
All day I face the barren waste Without the taste of water, cool water Old Dan and I with throats burned dry And souls that cry for water, cool, clear, water. (fr. “Cool Water,” Bob Nolan, 1941) So it’s the late Seventies and you’re a venture capitalist. I am sitting in your office outlining my …
Excerpts From the Ship's Log of the 'OSX Tiger IV'
Dan Shea September 23, 2007
Excerpts from the ship’s log of the ‘OSX Tiger IV,’ which as recently discovered by sarcastic deep-sea divers/Mac users. Finder’s Log, 08/20/06 We have finally left port! We have a fine new ship, the OSX Tiger IV, and a stout crew of hardy extensions (all fresh off well …
His Poor Wife
Jerome Shea September 15, 2007
No, I am not referring to the Long-Suffering Diana, though some might like to make that case. I am referring instead to the recent spate of disgraced politicians and others, those whose sexual shenanigans, real or alleged, have been exposed for all the world to snicker and gawk at, to mull over in …
10-4, Good Buddy
Jerome Shea September 8, 2007
I had to laugh. David Brooks, University of Chicago B.A. (History, ’83) and conservative pundit, was hunkered down with an over-the-road trucker in a diner in Virginia,* which got me fantasizing George Will jawing about porkbelly futures at the feed store or Thomas Sowell…but I find it too painful …
Pinocchio
Jerome Shea September 2, 2007
On the streets of Florence, second only to reproductions of David are reproductions—often keychain size—of Pinocchio, the world’s most famous puppet. This is as it should be, I suppose. Just as Michelangelo was a revered native son, so was Carlo Lorenzini, who gave us one of the world’s most famous …
eScams Collide
Dan Shea August 25, 2007
FROM: Koffi Mensah-Maafo (koffimensahmaafo@geemail.com) TO: Dear Friend: kZinSky_4_Prez (anar-key-21@nohope4man.net) SUBJECT: Your Urgent need for Money business relationship sir! Dear prospectively partner, This is Honorable lowly Koffi Mensah-Maafo writing for you, being behalf of Very Honorable …
A Grouch Abroad: Pictures
Jerome Shea August 12, 2007
Il Duomo Street scene, w/ Campanile, “Bruno,” “Gladys” I’ll have his name in just a minute! The Long-suffering Diana Abstemious Shea
A Grouch Abroad II
Jerome Shea August 4, 2007
Friday afternoon, I think it was, we spent six months in the Uffizi Gallery. It sure felt like that, traipsing from room to room to room to room… Please understand. I get off on Renaissance religious art with the same fervor as the next guy. But please! ENOUGH! I got really maxed out on the …
A Grouch Abroad: An Idiosyncratic Report
Jerome Shea July 28, 2007
(Being an account of the recent trip that Shea and Diana, his long-suffering wife, took to the city of Florence [the one in Italy]. Cosmopolitan readers will note that the perspective is American and somewhat provincial. You have a problem with that?) Well…before we had even boarded our flight in …