Independence Day

Happy 4th to one and all from the crew at Goat Rope Farm. I can't think of a better way to salute the day than a little radical but patriotic poetry, like this one by Langston Hughes. It starts like this:

Let America be America again.Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plainSeeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

The rest is here. Enjoy!

Not a real blog post

I've been running around too much lately to put together a real blog post, but it did occur to me today, not for the first time, how easy it is for one person to ruin an otherwise productive meeting.

In case you were wondering, here's the most unhealthy fast food meal in the US.

Speaking of unhealthy, here's a story about nasty stuff in the air around horizontal gas wells.

Going from four to two. Here's how dinosaurs did it.

Monday mix

Remember liberation theology? Here's a tongue in cheek look at "subjugation theology," as in the religious justification of gross inequality. Sadly the latter seems to be doing better than the former these days.

The state of the state of West Virginia is discussed in a new book by one of two pals of mine named Sean O'Leary.

Paul Krugman takes up for the unemployed here.

According to British scientists, plants "do maths." I don't know which is stranger, that fact or adding an s to the end of the word math.