Monthly Archives: November 2008

We Lost a Good One: ‘Tanta’ Succumbs to Cancer

Calculated Risk: Sad News: Tanta Passes Away.

I learned a lot from her, all of it via her blogging. And she had great style in her prose as well.

Posted in Blogs | 4 Comments

Wendy Grossman on the Autoharp

Someone has posted a video to YouTube of my friend Wendy Grossman, and describes it as “world's best Autoharp player, Wendy Grossman, playing Autoharp at Twickenham Folk club.”

Later in the comments section he says,

It was on 16 Mar 2008 at the Cabbage Patch pub, I went to see Bill Evans and Megan Lynch and this lady was on before them. She was very good, although a bit miserable!

Indeed, try as I might, somehow I don't see Wendy singing lots of sappy happy songs….

Posted in Kultcha | 1 Comment

Black (Humor) Saturday

Kevin Drum wins today’s prize for bleak humor with his Chart of the Day post.

Posted in Econ & Money | Comments Off on Black (Humor) Saturday

Reasons to Be Thankful

I hope you are having a happy Thanksgiving.

turkey.jpg

Should you need reminders of what to be thankful for, read John Scalzi, Being Poor. (Found via Abbamouse.)

And if that depressed you too much, here's a corrective: Ian Dury's Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3). Pedants (only) will enjoy this BBC explanation of the lyrics to Reasons to Cheerful and the Wikipedia account of the song's history.

Posted in Econ & Money | Comments Off on Reasons to Be Thankful

ABA Issues Recall of ‘Defective’ Laywers

America's Finest News Source, American Bar Association Recalls 230,000 Defective Lawyers

Keep calm, it's only 1 out 5 or so….plenty left to go around….

Posted in Completely Different | 2 Comments

We Can Do Better than This

10 Lessons of Prostate Cancer – Well Blog – NYTimes.com

Insurance can cause more stress than cancer. The goal of your insurer — no matter how singular or complex your case is — is to try to turn you into a statistical cliché, a cipher, in the face of your very human flesh-and-blood disease. In the months after my diagnosis, as my wife and I struggled to find the right pair of highly-skilled hands to perform my potentially difficult surgery, wrestling with my insurer caused me more grief, stress and depression than my cancer did. In our modern health-care-industrial-complex — and I'm talking about the bureaucrats who try to herd you into the cheapest cattle car available, not the nurses and doctors who are on the front lines — the emphasis is neither on health nor care, but on the bottom line. It's our job, as patients, to resist with all our strength.

Posted in Health Care | 1 Comment