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At the moment it seems clear that Barack Obama has had no direct involvement in the growing scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but nothing can remove the stench of Chicago politics that engulfs Obama thanks to his appointments of the Chicago Three. More ... Recently I reviewed the engrossing new book "Einstein and Oppenheimer" by Silvan S. Schweber, which contrasts and compares the lives of these two great men of science and I also started reading another interesting book, "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins. The review of "Einstein and Oppenheimer" is already published here in the North Florida News Daily and I encourage everyone to take a look at it. Reading that book, I started thinking about the type of culture these two men lived in: what both their own professional culture and immediate surroundings were like and also what the extended American and world culture of the time. More ... Hats off to the Illinois governor for shooting so high above and beyond the normal arc of political malfeasance that he's probably annoyed NASA by interfering with satellite traffic. After years of highlighting nuances and scrutinizing minute distinctions, it's downright thrilling to finally find someone acting crookeder than a dump truck full of dissembled wire hangers. More ... The subway train was rattling along the tracks up the east side of Manhattan as the man stood in the center of the car with his wife and small, dark-haired two year old son. "I'm not begging for money," he announced, "I'm looking for a job." More ... There's a beautiful thing President-elect Obama could do on his first day in office to prove he's serious about being an instrument of real change. It'd be politically painless. He'd double-cross no special-interest group. He'd offend no important voting bloc. And he wouldn't have to create a new federal bureaucracy or spend $30 billion to make it happen. More ... |
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