Sunday’s papers

This last Sunday the New York times ran an article by Kevin Kelly about the future of books and the business model of print.  I’m telling you that it’s a must-read: Brewster Kahle, an archivist overseeing another scanning project, says that the universal library is now within reach. "This is our chance to one-up the…

Violence broke out along the border in Afghanistan, in the tribal area Sarah and I visited in December 2004 called the Northwest Frontier Province. Under pressure from the United States, the government has been trying since early 2002 to assert control over the tribal areas, whose forbidding mountainous terrain serves as refuge for Taliban and…

One more thing you shouldn’t miss in the Sunday NYT: Coach Leach Goes Deep, Very Deep by Michael Lewis, also author of the seminal work on the application of advanced statatistical analysis to baseball,  Moneyball.  I’m not what you’d consider a baseball fan, but reading Moneyball was a riveting experience.  It was amazing to watch…

Sarah and I had friends over for bagels and then walked the baby all over town to art museums.  Only today (Monday) am I starting to get to the NYT Sunday magazine.  I’m postponing reading the article about why the world is running out of fish. 

Clearly the situation would be helped if places like Cafe Japone in Dupont Circle would stay open.  Their sushi on Saturday night was so past its prime that I couldn’t finish my meal.  A few more Cafe Japones in the world and sushi consumption will start to decline.

Sorry, but I left you to read the NYT and the WP and figure out yourself what’s worth reading.  I would have recommended, of course, the magazine.  Instead of reading the Sunday papers for you, I spent the weekend up at the farm in rural, western Maryland with a Presidente-sized Macanudo, a bottle of Talisker scotch,…

The adoption of the automotive hybrid technology, the price of gasoline and where it actually comes from, and economic integration of schools.

By the way my mom finished her chemo with a trip to the hospital for fluids.  Thanks to everyone for their notes of concern.  She starts her approximately 15 or so remaining radiation treatments this coming week, so the worst is still in front of us.

By the way, I do not like the new funny section of the NYT magazine.  It’s not funny.

[My previous article about Katrina’s effect on our economy is echoed in today’s New York Times, “Katrina’s Shock To The System”.]

Welcome to this edition of What I Think You Shouldn’t Miss in Sunday’s Papers.

I’m not enamored with most of the WP and NYT Katrina coverage, finding it either heart-rending stories of tragedy, boring and pointless analysis of the politics of hurricane relief, or updates on the relief effort that were went out of date within the time it took to print the paper.  My cynicism at the politics around disaster relief are centered around the belief that no matter how badly the relief is bungled, the President will not feel any serious political damage, and therefore nobody from his cabinet will lose their jobs.  The Bush’ are fiendishly loyal.  In the rare case of complete incompetence, such as in the case of George Tenet’s al-Qaeda-ignorant CIA, the perpetrators are given medals of Freedom instead of held accountable.  I admit that I am cynical, but my cynicism has been beaten into me by five years of no accountability, not affected out of laziness.  If Bush’s Cabinet worked for Mindshare, I would have fired them all a long time ago.  (And I hate firing people.)

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On Sunday, I started out my day in the Mission in CA and said to Sarah and a friend, "The NYT Magazine is the only thing worth reading in the Sunday paper!"

Ok, so I’m full of crap. 

You know how oil is made, right?  Old dinosaurs and plants decay for thousands of years and turn into that golden sludge we have become so addicted to.  So then you know that "Are we running out of oil?" isn’t really the question.  Since the planet is finite, there isn’t an infinite supply.

The question is posed by the NYT Magazine this past Sunday was "When will we run out of oil?"  (Link: The Breaking Point – New York Times).  The answer may be "soon".