by Kate Lewis Torok

Eight weeks ago, I had a baby. Three weeks from today, I will be returning to work. While my wallet is hurting, my heart is hurting more. It aches, actually. My daughter is still a tiny peanut, working on her neck muscles so she can hold her head up to see this world like the rest of us. It hardly seems fair that in just 21 days, work will come between us. I am the one she has come to know so well over the last 11 months – from my womb to my arms. Full story »

I am quarreling with God. No, wait—I can put it a better way: I have had a quarrel with God, and I have walked away from him. That’s all, amen, don’t bother to see me out, I’ll close the door behind me.

I always had hoped God was a woman, because I felt a woman God would be easier to get along with. I prefer working with women. The most important people in my life are women. I probably wouldn’t have quarreled with a woman God. But, even though I am not a scholar when it comes to the Bible, I have a hunch the men who wrote it weren’t exactly feminists, so of course they were going to say God is a guy: “Our Father, who art in heaven …” In my opinion, it turns out they were right. Before I walked away from God, whenever I tried talking to him (praying, if you will), I felt like a kid again, trying to talk to my father after supper while he was reading the evening newspaper in the living room and watching the nightly news at 6:30. Full story »

The long-anticipated (or long-dreaded, depending on your perspective) racial abuse trial of Chelsea center back John Terry commenced in London this morning, and already my ambivalence is mounting. For those unfamiliar with the case, Terry stands accused of calling Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand a … brace yourselves here, tender American reader … “fucking black cunt” in a match last season. In the US such behavior, if proven, would get you fined, ostracized and probably suspended. In the UK, however, it’s actually illegal, and while Terry faces nothing more than a fine if convicted, it certainly won’t do his reputation any good. Full story »

This time last week Colorado was enduring epic wildfires and “Fire Danger: Extreme” seemed an understatement. We were seeing temps in excess of 100 degrees and one day the humidity dipped as low as three percent. So much for the “earth is burning” portion of the show. Now we’re three or four days into the great floods foretold in the Old Testament. Three weeks ago I posted a couple of pictures from movie night on the Elitch Theater lawn. Here’s one of them, to refresh your memory.

Here’s that same lawn a few minutes ago, after a few hours of positively biblical rain this morning. Full story »

Note to liberals: Stop saying “I seriously considered moving to Canada.” It sounds stupid (because it is), it’s not true, and it’s only providing hope and encouragement to the right wingnuts.

“I seriously considered moving to Canada.” Really? Did you travel to Canada, look at houses, check out schools, apply for a job? OK, did you start reading a Canadian newspaper or buy books on Canada? Did your “serious consideration” involve anything at all except saying that one silly phrase?

Didn’t think so. Full story »

Roger Federer yesterday earned his seventh Wimbledon men’s singles title, defeating Scotsman Andy Murray in four sets. It was an excellent match, if not an epic one, and the victory was well deserved by the man some believe is the greatest tennis player in history.

For me, though, the defining moment of the 2012 Championships came not during the match, but after, when runner-up Murray was handed the microphone for the customary remarks to the crowd. We’re used to gracious on these occasions, but Murray truly raised the bar for future finals losers. He struggled with his composure, then finally gained enough control to get off a wry joke: “I’m getting closer,” reference to the fact that he’s been in Grand Slam finals before but has never won. Full story »

By the time I was two hundred pages into Jeff Shaara’s new novel—roughly halfway—I wondered how an author could write so much and say so little.

It picked up, thankfully. I wouldn’t have known that, though, had I not forced myself to stick with it.

I had high hopes for A Blaze of Glory, which tells the story of the battle of Shiloh. The Western Theater gets ignored so much that I was glad a writer in Shaara’s league was going to give it some attention. A Blaze of Glory will be the first in a trilogy that will cover Vicksburg and then “the final chapter of the war in Georgia and the Carolinas” (apparently Chickamauga and Chattanooga don’t matter, not to say anything of Stones River). Full story »

Today I witnessed (at least for me) the birth of a meme — an idea spread through a culture. It’s a common word in Internet parlance: An “Internet meme” is often considered to be a viral torpedo bent on tearing through that culture malevolently.

The emergence of this meme shows us what passes for acceptable “content” these days. The journalism business has shed experienced, competent reporters as compensation for lousy business decisions made by shortsighted media corporations. That has a cost. We reap what we sow …

A friend sent a link to a Yahoo news blog post about remarks by Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, regarding Americans’ perceptions of climate change.

The post, written by one Conor Skelding, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a Yahoo intern, carries this hed: Just step outside: More Americans convinced of climate change after extreme weather

The hed provides no support for “convinced”; it is sheer opinion. It is a meme emerging from the womb, a virgin birth with no fathering fact.
Full story »

by Chip Ainsworth

A good nonfiction sports book is hard to find because most authors tend to put athletes on a pedestal. There are exceptions, such as Robert Creamer’s biography of Babe Ruth and Pat Jordan’s brutal self-assessment of being a failed Milwaukee Braves bonus baby in the 1950s. The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods by Hank Haney falls into the former category.

Haney was Woods’ swing instructor from 2004 to 2010. During that time Woods won 39 tournaments, including a half-dozen majors. Regrettably, Haney can’t get past the golfer to talk about the man, and even the golfing prose is less than revelatory: “Tiger was so good he could still win with less than his best stuff.”

No kidding. Full story »

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As Dr. Denny so eloquently put it yesterday, “Political warfare by any name is still war.” That point was brought home to me this morning on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal were sent by the Romney campaign to steal Obama’s thunder in Parma, Ohio in yet another round of dueling campaign rallies. As is usual, supporters of the opposition showed up and confrontations ensued.

But on Thursday there was a confrontation that reminded me of the Tea Party supporters stomping on the head of a female member of the opposition. Full story »

(Part two of two)

“Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams wrote in a letter to her husband during his service in the Continental Congress. And those words are how we now most often remember her: “Remember the ladies.”

And John did. He pined for her. His long public career—in the Continental Congress, as a minister in Europe, as vice president, as president—kept them apart for long stretches. They spent ten of their fifty-four years of marriage separated by war, by sea, by duty.

So they wrote—some 1200 letters in all. “My dearest friend,” he addressed her, and he meant it.

The lively correspondence between John and Abigail illuminates not only a great American love story but also a great political partnership. Among the company of great Founders, Abigail was the one forced to stay at home—by social convention and family duty—but she refused to be forgotten. Full story »

Hope you enjoyed your hot dogs, Mom, apple pie, fireworks, and the inevitable flourishes of patriotism, both faux and real, on the Fourth of July. But nothing has changed in America from the July 3 that kissed you good night to the July 5 that nudged you awake you this morning.

Political warfare by any name is still war. Call it what you will: The haves vs. the have-nots, class warfare, or ideological conflict — it’s still a cruel war, and it inflicts wounds on far too many of us. Some are deep: The bank took the house. Some are possibly fatal: The insurance company wouldn’t pay for the surgery. Or the drugs for that cancer. Some will fester for a lifetime: College students face a one-trillion-dollar student loan debt. Some are a perpetual itch that scratching does not relieve: There will be no pay raise next year, and your contribution to the company’s health plan will double. Full story »

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Unpacking words, she spreads them out
Like cards that might reveal something
Hidden. There’s no room for your doubt.
Unpacking her words, they fan out
Into a hand, neat, clear of rings.
Unpacking those words, she spreads them out
Beyond speech. Until they can sing. Full story »

(Part one of two)

When Abigail Adams died in late October, 1818, her husband, John, brokenhearted, said, “I wish I could lie down beside her and die, too.”

Today, the two are entombed side by side, along with their son John Quincy and his wife, Louisa Catherine, in a well-lit, whitewashed crypt beneath the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Mass. I’ve come here to pay my respects to the former presidents and first ladies, but mostly I’m here to say thanks to John, and to remember him because he worried he’d be forgotten.

Full story »

by Tom Yulsman

Concerning this morning’s New York Times article on CERN’s Higgs boson announcement:

The newly discovered particle may be the Higgs boson. It looks for all the world like the Higgs boson. It is for sure a “Higgs-like” particle. Its discovery is an historic “milestone.” It may be one of the biggest observations since the discovery of the quark. Or maybe not. The director general of CERN says he will “stick his neck out” and say that this is a “discovery.” Of something very very important. Maybe. Possibly. Time may tell. Full story »